Bloody Bones
by CrazyTeddyBear
Summary: Bella's luck has run our again,a serial killing vampire with the wish to destroy the vampire race has come to Forks,and as a soon-to-be vampire Bella's his next target.Can the Cullens protect her and kill the vampire?Post Eclipse.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Bella and Edward are driving home from the scene in the meadow at the end of Eclipse. Before we start I'd just like to remind everyone that Charlie has a part of whatever immunity to mental gifts Bella has, Edward has a hard time reading his mind. **

**Chapter One- Strange Occurrences**

**Bella POV**

I sighed and looked out the window, fiddling with the wedding ring on my left hand, while the greenery of Forks speeding past. I wondered how Charlie would react to the wedding; marriage had been the downfall of the relationship between him and Renee. I was afraid he'd react badly, like pull-a-gun-on-Edward badly; Edward told me that he wouldn't do that, but Edward was unfailingly optimistic when it came to the whole marriage thing.

We planned to tell Charlie when we got home, no need to drag things out. Just get it over with. I looked at Edward sitting across the car from me; he seemed totally calm and composed, like always. I'm sure I seemed flustered and nervous. Edward turned to look at me, "What's wrong love? Your heart sounds like it's going a hundred miles an hour."

"I'm just worried about Charlie; he's going to react badly. I know he is. What if he tells me I can't marry you? What if-"

"I'm sure Charlie will be happy if you're happy Bella." He cut me off before I could fret more, "Remember that we can elope whenever you want." He teased, trying to cheer me up.

"Yeah, I'm sure that would make Charlie react to the whole marriage thing even better. And Renee... she's going to explode even if we tell her before we run off to Vegas." I exploded, worry bursting from my system.

"Don't worry Bella; all you can do is tell them, their reactions are their own. There is nothing you can do to change them." His voice was totally collected, he was right about that. If Charlie was going to freak out about me getting married, he would do it no matter what I said. Unfortunately I still felt that the way I broke the news would have a lot of effect.

We pulled into the driveway, gravel crunching under the wheels of Edward's car. There were no other cars in the driveway. "That's strange; Charlie should be home from work by now." I looked at the clock, it was seven p.m., and Charlie finished working at about six normally.

"Something probably came up. Do you want me to stay, or do you want to tell him tomorrow night?" The prospect of being able to procrastinate made me feel a lot better; I'd be able to figure out what to say.

I'd probably stress myself out until then, but I definitely need to wait until I get more used to the idea of getting _married_. Ugh...

"I think we should tell him tomorrow, he'll be grumpy if he's been working this late. Can you stay anyway?" I looked at him hopeful; any time with Edward is good time.

He grinned at me, "Whatever you want, I'll do it if I can. I'm going hunting later tonight, but you should be asleep by then."

Edward and I got out of the car and went inside. I made dinner for Charlie when he got home while Edward leaned up against the counter. Once I was done that we went and watched T.V. for a bit- Dracula was on. Knowing what real vampires are like can make the movie absolutely hilarious.

Charlie got home at about nine, he looked worried. "Sorry I'm so late for dinner Bells, there's been some more deaths. If this keeps up we might end up beating Seattle- what with all the animal attacks."

"Does it look like animals are doing it again?" asked Edward, he was leaning up against the wall. If there are more vampires in Forks I might just scream, they all make a natural line to me. I do not want to die now.

"No," mumbled Charlie, he was piling some food onto his plate, "whatever it is human this time." I frowned; it might still be a vampire. It probably wasn't, but a vampire could make its attacks like a human monster.

"Is there a pattern to it?" I asked.

"It's always stab wounds." He looked really tired. I looked at Edward questioningly. He shrugged.

"There's been more than one then?" Edward was looking worried, probably about me. Knowing my luck whoever is killing people is going to come right at me.

"Three, we found one fresh body, then we did a search and found another one that was about two weeks old, and one that was about one week old." Three victims, a vampire could drain the bodies of blood from a stab wound; it would keep the attention of the humans away from the supernatural so the Volturi would stay away. A vampire intelligent enough to come up with an idea like that would probably be old enough to be able to feed about once a week.

Edward looked at me, "now that Charlie's here I'm going to head home Bella." We walked to the door and he kissed me on the forehead. "I'm going to just take the car around the corner and call Alice; she can bring me some extra clothes so I don't have to leave. I'm not going anywhere until I find out if it's a vampire or a human doing this."

"You can't tell then?"

"No, I need to know more about the bodies. If they're totally drained of blood then it's a vampire. If they're not then it's a human. Or it might be both- if a serial killer gets turned into a vampire they'll still be a serial killer. If the serial killer enjoys using knifes then he'll still use knifes. Charlie's not going to give me secret police information, so I'll need to do some digging with my family. See if you can get more information out of Charlie, don't do too much prying tonight or he'll get suspicious."

"I'll try."

"That's all we can do." He paused, "I love you Bella."

"I love you too Edward." I never understood what the words 'more than my own self' meant until I met Edward.

I kissed him, or rather he kissed me. His lips controlled the movement. It's hard for me to stand up to him since he's made out of a substance harder than granite. Not that I really want to, kissing Edward is a dream come true. "I'll be in your room." He whispered into my ear before he walked out the door.

I went back into the kitchen. Reaching over the table I put my hand on Charlie's shoulder, "you want to talk about it?" Hopefully he'll just start spilling his guts and I'll get everything I need to know.

He sighed, "I don't really think it's the kind of thing I should be telling you about Bells, it's not very pretty." Since I can't really tell him about all the vampire stuff, I couldn't really tell him how well I handle weird. I mean, could you see the conversation?

_Yeah... don't worry Dad I've seen people being dismembered, gotten thrown around the room by a psychopathic hunter intent on my death, listened to the Volturi massacring a roomful of innocent people after a long discussion on how to kill me... it's nothing really, we just need to know about the bodies so we can see if it's a vampire or not._

I'm sure that would go over well.

"I can live dad, I've seen worse things on T.V. I can just pretend that we're talking about a movie, then you'll be able to talk about it. Let's face it, I won't understand a word your saying, this is all for you. Or I could buy you a diary to write in, it'll let you express your feelings." And maybe I can steal it and get all of the details I need for the crime scene.

"That's a good idea Bells," he was just humouring me, Charlie probably would take the book and not write a word in it, but if I could get the information I needed... "I can get my own book though."

"I have a spare notebook in my room, mom made me take it with me when I went to Jacksonville. She said that I might as well take it since she wasn't doing anything about it." Come on Charlie, take the nice bait.

"Sure, why not? If you think it's a good idea Bells."

"I'll be back in a few then." I jogged up the stairs to my room and went inside. Alice was sitting on my bed, I jumped up and she darted over and put her hand over my mouth before I could shriek.

"Careful Bella." She murmured, stepping back. She passed me a small notebook, "good idea, the other one is sitting at the dump though. You threw it out because you thought that you'd never use it."

"Have you had any visions yet?" I asked.

"None, but that's just because I don't know who I'm looking for and the killer hasn't made a decision to kill someone else yet. Jaspers got a laptop; he and Emmett are trying to hack into the police database. They're not making very much progress though, it's well protected. You've had the best idea so far."

That's a first, it's nice to outsmart the vampires every once and a while.

She turned and jumped out of the window without another word. I took the hint and went to go give the book to Charlie, "Thanks Bells," he muttered.

"No problem dad. It's not like I was using it for anything. I'm going to head up to bed now." Alice had been here and left, which would mean that Edward would be coming back soon. I headed up the stairs and went into the bathroom, taking a hot shower and letting warm water and the familiar fragrance of the familiar strawberry shampoo sooth my already over-stressed nerves.

Isn't it just my luck that the minute we clear one danger out of town that a brand-new one will show up?

I walked carefully over the slippery tiles of the washroom, getting dressed in my pyjamas and brushing my teeth, eventually I was clean and relaxed enough that I felt I would be able to at least sleep a little bit.

I slouched over to my room, I was feeling exhausted, there had been so much happening today that it had taken a huge toll on my nerves. I walked into my room to see my very own angel lying on the bed, "Edward," I breathed; he slid sideways a little bit and patted the bed beside him. I walked over unsteadily and climbed up beside him

"What's happening at your house?" I asked sleepily.

"Nothing much, just try to go to sleep Bella. I'll wake you up if anything happens."

"No you wouldn't," I mumbled, trying to fight against the oncoming sleep but finding that it was a losing battle.

I heard the laughter in his voice. "Just go to sleep Bella,"

"Okay... if you insist..." I was out and asleep before I could even think about it.

_I was walking down a dark alley. It was a cold night and I was shivering inside of my jacket, I had my hands crunched up in my pockets. I was curled up as small as possible; trying to conserve as much warmth as possible. My breath formed tiny clouds of crystallized fog in front of me, my feet were crunching on the thin layer of frost that seemed to cover the ground. _

_It was so dark out, I couldn't see anything at all. There wasn't even a street lamp to cast light. I felt like something was going to jump out of the shadows and grab me. The graffiti on the brick walls made strange shapes and the piles of trash looked almost like people curled up on the ground. _

_I kept walking, the alleyway seemed so long- there seemed to be no end. I went on forever. I was tempted to call out and see if there was anyone there, except I had no way of knowing exactly who would come out. Given my current environment I was betting that it wouldn't be anyone nice. I continued to creep along the alleyway, seeing no other option._

_I slipped and fell on the icy ground; my hands fell into what must have been a puddle of water. I tried to wipe it off on my jeans and dry my hands before they got any colder but the water seemed sticky, almost like they were covered in juice._

_I turned around, planning to go back down the alleyway down the alleyway. I hadn't taken a step when the lights on the way down the alleyway all turned on and the entire alleyway was bathed in an eerie orange light._

_I gasped, almost throwing up. The strange bulky shapes that I assumed were trash bags were actually bodies, there was blood everywhere, there were words written on the wall in blood, and they sent a chill through my spine._

_Don't look behind you._

_I choked on a sob and spun around, the bodies of my family lay scattered on the ground, covered in stab wounds. I started hyperventilating. There was so much blood... I looked at the body closest to me._

_It was Edward._

_I started sobbing, "No... NO! This shouldn't be happening... he can't die that way." The sobs grew, choking off my air. "No..." I moaned._

_I raised my hand to my mouth, and realized that the sticky substance was more blood._

_I let out an ear piercing scream. "Edward!" Someone started shaking me and I started screaming for help. I blinked and the world around me cleared..._

"Bella?" Edward asked frantically, shaking my shoulder, "Bella, wake up love- it's just a dream."

I sat up, blinking blearily at my bedroom. The old lamp was casting a comfortable yellow light around my room, it was dark and warm. The cold, ugly dream seemed so distant in my warm, safe room. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself before looking questioningly at Edward, "What did I say?"

He looked at me, relief practically washing off of him. "You started muttering about how cold it was, then you started screaming about all the blood, and then I died apparently. I keep forgetting how vivid your dreams are- you were actually shivering."

I shrugged, "it was just another nightmare- nothing all that big. Have you had any news about Charlie yet?"

Edwards chuckled softly, "I could hear him writing something downstairs, then Alice called us saying she had a vision that your plan worked. Apparently Charlie thought about writing something, laughed at himself and went to watch T.V. before not being able to concentrate. He had an internal debate about writing in the diary for a while, before finally deciding that writing the journal would be totally for your benefit."

"And you know Charlie's inner monologue how?" I asked suspiciously. Whatever funky problem my brain had was obviously genetic, because Edward couldn't read Charlie's brain very well. It was like his brain was stuck in between the am and the fm stations- everything is fuzzy to Edward. Edward tries to tune him out because that fuzziness is annoying enough to give even a vampire a headache.

"Alice saw some of what he wrote in the diary, it's good he wrote in the diary when he did- Emmett and Jasper's plan to hack into the police computer system came up blank, we've never had to try to do anything like that before. Normally we just leave town when something like this happens."

"Ah..." I nodded. I yawned, my jaw gaping open. "Am I putting you everyone at risk because of this? Don't get me wrong, I want to have the wedding, but if it's putting your family at a risk then shouldn't we just leave."

Edward shook his head, the look on his face a cross between amusement and irritation, "Silly Bella- leaving with you now would just raise more questions than it asks. Normally we can have our entire family leave, but leaving with the police chief's daughter- especially with all these murders happening- would just draw attention to us. We'd need to make you disappear, then wait about a year, then _we _could disappear. It's more trouble than it's worth, especially since I consider myself perfectly capable of protecting you from a mere human."

"Over-confident," I teased, when he raised his eyebrow at me I blushed, "I guess you're right." We waited in comfortable silence before Edward realized that I wasn't falling asleep yet.

"Ready to go back to sleep love?" he asked playfully.

"Just two other things." I requested, trying to look as innocent as possible. He frowned at me but gestured for me to continue, "Why can't Alice see the serial killer?"

Edward shrugged, "Whoever is doing the killing isn't thinking straight. It's like he (or she) acts like the werewolves and lives completely on impulse."

"And one, tiny last thing..." I trailed off suggestively.

"What?" his voice sounded amused, and he had a right to be. This was somewhat of a tradition- every time I had a nightmare I would ask for a kiss. Kissing Edward had a tendency to wipe all unpleasant thoughts and memories from my head- I find I have fewer nightmares if Edward kisses me.

That's what I keep telling myself as an excuse anyways.

I stared into the molten gold of his eyes, "You know." I said playfully.

He grinned crookedly, "I believe I do." He leaned forwards across the bed and our lips met halfway. I wrapped my arms around him and moulded my lips against his. After a few seconds he pulled back and I was left gasping for air.

His grin got even bigger, "Are you ready now?" No. I'd rather kiss Edward all night long.

I leaned back against the pillow, wrapping my arms around him. "Most definitely ready." I closed my eyes and –despite my reservations- drifted into a deep sleep, with no nightmares of insane murderers bothering my sleep.

It wasn't until I woke up the next day that I realized that we had totally forgotten to tell Charlie that we were getting married.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So here's Chapter Two of the story, I swear things will start to get interesting soon. Updates will be every Friday, just in case you were wondering.**

**Chapter Two- Monsters of All Shapes and Sizes**

**Bella POV**

I yawned, sitting up from my warm bed. The murky sunlight was streaming into the room through the open window. I looked around the bright room- well, bright for Forks. I looked over at Edward; he was sitting in the armchair in the corner. His lips quirked up into a grin as he watched me staring at him.

"Good morning love. Did you sleep well?" He asked softly.

I beamed at him, "Perfectly. Have you checked Charlie's journal to see if there are any interesting facts about the crime scene?"

Edward grinned, "Normally I would. But I figure since it was your idea, and it is your father..."

My smile widened, maybe he was finally backing off on the over protectiveness a bit. "Let's go then." I said cheerfully, despite the fact we were going to look at a diary full of dead people.

I seem to be spending most of my life with dead people. Am I the only one who finds that there's a problem with that? Really, it's a _very _good thing that Charlie is in the dark right now. If he had even an _inkling_ about what I've been getting myself into in the past few months then I would be in so much trouble.

I climbed out of bed. Untangling myself from the blankets was always an interesting thing to watch; my tossing and turning at night create a fairly huge mess. I'm surprised that I haven't fallen out of the bed yet.

We walked through the hall into Charlie's room, I looked at Edward, "do you know where Charlie put it?" I asked.

"It's under his bed- he knows that you don't have the strength to lift the bed up to get at it. I don't think he was expecting me to give you a hand." He replied.

I grinned, "I doubt he knows you and your family are vampires either."

Edward chuckled, only saying "It would be really bad if he did know- could you imagine the look on his face if he figured out you were marrying a vampire."

"I can't even imagine the look on his face when I tell him I'm getting married to a human being." I shuddered.

Walking over he lifted up the bad and pulled out a small book. It was the same one I gave Charlie last night. He handed it to me, "Will you do the honours Bella?"Nodding at him, I sat down on the bed and flipped the book open.

_July 15, 2007_

_Today we discovered another body- that's three in total. All were female, with brown eyes and brown hair. The first thought is a serial killer. They repeat the same crime over and over again to relive the memory of killing someone they really hated. They just can't stop killing._

_The MO is always the same too- stab wounds. There's a very little amount of blood on the scene- even less than if the victim was stabbed somewhere else and allowed to bleed out. It's as if they were drained dry and all the blood was sucked out of them._

_The crime scenes are all annoyingly clean of evidence- there's no fingerprints, no hair, not even any footprints despite the muddy soil. It's like the bodies just magically appeared there._

_I'm worried about Bella- she matches the victim profile exactly. Plus her luck isn't the greatest. All of the victims had broken bones and bruising that would come from immense pressure. That's not a way I would want anyone to go, let alone my daughter. No human strength can do that; some kind of tool must have been used .But there were no tools on the murder sight, and I've never heard of anything that could do that type of damage._

_This diary idea of Bella's is a very good idea, she was right about how it would help to write my feelings down. She's an awesome kid. I just hope that she never stumbles upon this and accidently reads it. She would never do it on purpose, not unless it was a life or death matter._

I winced and closed the book with a snap; that was the end of the entry. "I'm going to have to say that it's pretty clear. If the whole 'bodies with the blood sucked out of them' wasn't clear enough for us then the 'victims being subjected to immense pressure' would be another set of warning bells." I felt kind of bad for intruding upon Charlie's personal thoughts. After all, he believed that it was totally private. He wouldn't have voiced his fears about me being murdered otherwise. Then again, it _really _was a life or death matter- we might even be able to stop the monster.

Edward nodded, "I guess we should head over to my house and tell everyone else now. They'll be really irritated with us if we take too long to give them the news." He lifted the bed back up for me and I stuck the book back in exactly the same way it was before. Edward put the bed back down and we fixed the sheets- it soon looked exactly like it had before we snuck in.

I got changed quickly, pulling on a pair of plain blue jeans and a light brown t-shit. I went to head towards the front door and Edward cut me off, grinning slightly, "I doubt that it can hurt to wait five minutes for you to eat breakfast."

"I thought that you just said that your siblings would be getting impatient." I reminded him.

"They have an eternity- they can wait five minutes too." I sighed and grabbed one of the pre-made sandwiches I made for Charlie in the fridge.

Gulping it down I looked at Edward and said, "What kind of idiotic vampire turns a serial killer."

Edward chuckled darkly, "A dead one- handing over the ultimate weapon to someone who can't stop killing and then letting them loose is just asking for the Volturi to become involved."

"What if it's an older vampire? It's a good way to hide behind a human nature. All he would have to do is just repeat the same kind of crime over and over again and the humans won't look sideways at it. Well, it would get a lot of media, but it wouldn't be the kind of media that says 'hey- that dudes a vampire.' If I were a human eating vampire then it's probably what I would do."

Edward shrugged, "I think that it's an actual serial killer. The vampire that's doing this has a bad choice in placement. Our scent and the wolves' scent- and trust me, they reek- is all over the territory. A vampire that's wily enough to think up a plan like that would not do it here."

"And you're sure that it's a serial killer, not just some newborn with twisted hobbies because...?"

"Serial killers live to repeat the same crime over and over again. They may be reminding themselves of a crime they committed a long time ago, repeatedly giving victims the same name as someone they really hated. Or they might be seeking to rid the world of a certain group of people. Or they just can't stop. A newborn with twisted hobbies wouldn't be that specific, or that repetitive. In fact, he'd be the exact opposite- he'd want to come up with new and creative ways to kill every time. And why are we even talking about this over breakfast?"

"So you're telling me that it's better to talk about Victoria's recent demise, or the Volturi... Oh shit- I just had a kind of scary thought. They just came for a visit and found me human. What if the murders came back and they came to investigate and I was _still _human-"

"Let's not talk about the Volturi over breakfast either." Edward said, cutting me off. "Alice would see them coming, and fleeing from the Volturi beats trying to stay low key, so at that point we would just leave town and run like crazy."

"Too bad for you," I said, gobbling down the remains of my sandwich, "because I'm done breakfast, so anything we talk about isn't over breakfast."

Edward rolled his eyes, "Let's go see my family."

"Oh, so now were all eager to get going," I teased, following him out to my truck.

Edward sighed and looked at me forlornly, "I don't suppose you'd mind if we ran instead of driving that thing." His eyes were like melting butterscotch as he tried to dazzle me into it.

"Hah- no." I said shortly. "That will make me feel like I'm about to throw up, plus I like my truck. It's the perfect thing."

"Remind me to buy you a fast car." Edward said, smirking.

"Don't even think about it!" I snapped at him, "There is no need for you to do that- I like my truck, it's sturdy and impossible to turn into a pretzel around a tree. You worry about my safety constantly, and yet you go to buy me a fast car- it's hypocritical!" I ranted.

Edward sighed, "Fine." he said, "I will not buy you a fast car."

I smirked and turned the key in the ignition, letting the truck roar to life. I loved it- the smell from the leather of the seats, it's insane durability, it handles well on wet roads... it was a very sturdy, very good truck. I can't see why Edward has such a problem with it.

We pulled into the Cullen's driveway, my huge truck squeezing down the twisty lane. We both climbed out of the car and headed towards the front door of the huge house. When I opened it the door seemed to be ten times creakier than usual, and the house was totally silent. I had assumed it would be like it was when Victoria was in Seattle- they would all be crowded in the living room around the T.V. discussing ways to take out the threat. Instead it was like there wasn't a single living thing in the house (and I use the term living very loosely).

I turned and looked at Edward, "Where is everyone?" I asked; I assumed they must be in one of the back rooms, or maybe they went out to hunt a little bit.

"They're in the attic," he said calmly, leading me to the stairs.

"You have an attic?" I asked. "How did I manage to miss that?" In the past few weeks, especially with all of the Bella-sitting going on here, I had been all over the house. It didn't even seem all that huge anymore. And yet I had managed to miss something like an attic.

Edward and I started heading upstairs while he explained, "It's inaccessible to humans, even if you knew where it was you'd never be able to get up there unless we lifted you up. There isn't really all that much up there- just all of the papers and memories that we can't risk anyone finding. We don't really care about what would happen if a burglar stole something, but if one of them stumbled upon a bunch of old family photos then we'd be in serious trouble. We also do all the illegal stuff up there, and since breaking into police databases counts as illegal... well, I'm sure you can see why they're all up there right now."

"I doubt all of them need to be up there to break into the database." I said, grinning.

"Ah, but catching deranged serial killing vampires is fun. We haven't had anything as interesting as this happen for years." Edward said, faking a cheerful smile. "Minus the vampire army trying to kill us, the Volturi looking for reason to kill us and you being hunted, of course. All the fun stuff happens when you're around."

"You do realize you're family probably needs therapeutic help, right?" I smirked.

Edward snickered and patted me gently on the back, "You do realize it's your family too. And that since you're included in it, you would get to come to see the shrink too."

"Touché." I said, laughing.

We reached the end of the hallway and I looked up, seeing only white ceiling with a curvy texture. "I see no attic..." I said jokingly.

Edward smirked and reached up, just seeming to brush the ceiling with his hand. A panel of the ceiling slid back as he brushed it, reviling a hole. Edward lifted me up part way, I grabbed the floor and tried to pull myself the rest of the way, but I didn't have the upper body strength. Carlisle saw me and lifted me the rest of the way, "Hello." He said calmly, looking as if he was trying not to laugh.

"Hello." I said in response, looking around the attic. It looked just like any attic, wooden floor and ceiling beams, except that there was some equipment in it that looked extremely advanced. There were some boxes over in the corner, I was guessing that those had the photos and papers in them that Edward had mentioned. "What is all this stuff?" I asked.

"Some projects that we made when we got bored." Carlisle said with a shrug, "Sometimes we'll sell the ideas to humans, but for the most part it just ends up here until we find somewhere to get rid of it."

Edward walked up behind me, "So I suppose you all want to know what the diary said..." he trailed off playfully as seven pairs of gold eyes focused on him.

Rosalie rolled her eyes, "No." She said sarcastically, "We'd much rather stand here listening to you make evasive comments. Spill, Edward. There's a monster out there."

"It all points to a serial killer that got turned into a newborn vampire, but still managed to keep his unsavoury habits." said Edward, "He stabs his victims to death and then drinks their blood. And that's lovely enough to terrify any sane cop, but then throw in the other things that indicate one of us- like bones snapped under intense pressure- and you'll have the Feds in town in no time." All of the Cullens winced.

There were a few minutes where everyone stood there thinking. Rosalie looked at Carlisle, "Should we leave town?" she asked.

Carlisle shook his head, "We can't. We've become more involved in this town than ever, if we were just to leave again, then everyone would automatically start pointing at us, and if we become then prime subjects in a murder investigation that'll probably get a lot of publicity. We're already on thin ice with the Volturi because of Bella, and they have a tendency to kill people who have as many problems with the rules as us. It's dangerous even with us totally removed from the case."

I frowned, "I have an idea. Let me finish before you start saying no, Edward. What if you were to change me now, and then stay in town? I match the victim profile for the serial killer perfectly, so everyone would just think it got me. It would be just as effective as getting caught in a car crash, and since no one is ever going to catch _this _serial killer, everyone would just assume he killed me. Then that takes away at least one problem with the Volturi, so if they walk into town in the middle of everything then we have a clean slate."

Emmett nodded, "It's a good idea."

Edward shook his head, managing to keep his voice calm even though the way his eyes suddenly turned black showed how absolutely furious he was, "It wouldn't work that way. They'd come into town and kill us all, they don't really look at it the same way we do. They'd see it as us breaking two rules in one year, they've already given us a chance- something they _never _do- and giving us yet another chance is impossible. We might as well hope for the grass to turn blue. Besides that, in a murder investigation, the first person the cops always look at is the boyfriend. We'd just end up getting even more involved."

I sighed, "I guess you have a point. Any other ideas?"

Alice shrugged, "Kill the newborn, the only question is how. With the exception of Jasper and Emmett we were out all last night looking for it, the wolves were out too, but we couldn't find him anywhere. His scent was all over the crime scenes, but we couldn't find any trails leading off of them. He's been travelling through the water systems- lakes, rivers, streams... we can't find him. He could be anywhere. We only assume he's still in Forks because he's stayed for the past three weeks. If we've scared him off then we'd never know."

Jasper shook his head, "He won't leave until we've made ourselves a serious threat. He probably just assumed you were all out hunting last night, unless you made it clear you were looking for him. Did you?"

Alice shook her head, "No, we figured the same thing you did. We all made sure not to mention why we were really out there, and we all stopped to hunt at least three times each. I've never felt so full in my life- I think we probably should have just pretended we were going for a run instead."

I let curiosity get the better of me, "How can you be _full_?"

Alice chuckled, "I'll always be thirsty, but there's only so much blood the body can hold. If I drink seven deer in one hour, then I literally can't hold anymore and I feel sloshy, like I've just chugged seven glasses of water."

"Oh." I nodded, understanding.

There were a few more minutes of hopeless discussion before everyone went back to their various activities. I sat down on an old couch leaning up against the wall. Then a thought came to me- if the vampire was really a newborn, then he wasn't killing just one victim a week. A newborn would have to hunt at least once every two days, assuming it didn't lose control. So that led to one more question.

How many victims were there?


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: And I just realised I forgot to add a disclaimer, so here is the disclaimer for the rest of the story: I do not own Twilight, or the Cullens, or Edward, no matter how much I might want to. I'll shut up now so that you can enjoy the Chapter, and if you do enjoy it leave a nice review so I know whether or not to continue writing this one.**

**Chapter Three- Unwanted Visitors**

**Bella POV**

Eventually all the Cullens got bored with just standing around a computer, so they decided to go out 'running'. Loosely translated, 'running' means 'hunting for a deranged serial killing vampire'. At that point my usefulness dropped from nothing to negative five, so I decided to head home and cook Charlie dinner (while pumping him for info too, but I can't really tell him that).

My truck pulled into the driveway and I noticed a sleek, black car. I wondered nervously who that could belong to- it certainly didn't belong to anyone native to Forks since no one but the Cullens could afford a car that nice, and it wasn't one of theirs. I saw Charlie's police cruiser in the driveway and knew he was home. Who would visit my house with a car like that?

Is it the Volturi? They've certainly got more than enough money to afford a car like that.

I debated turning around right then and there, if it was the Volturi then walking into the house definitely wouldn't be a smart idea. Then I remembered that Charlie was in the house. Alone. I braced myself and walked to the front door, pulling it open. "Bells?" I heard Charlie call, his voice perfectly calm and relaxed.

"Yeah?" I called, trying to mask my nervousness.

"Could you come here for a few seconds, I have some people here from work." I quietly breathed a sigh of relief and walked in. Charlie knew whoever it was, so it definitely wasn't _them._

You know I've been spending too much time worrying when I see a car in the driveway, and automatically assume it's the Italian vampire mafia coming to kill me and drink my blood. I need to calm down a little bit, stop being such a paranoid person. After all, it's not like _every_ mythical creature within the state is going to make a beeline straight for me- just ninety-nine percent.

I walked into the living room. There were two men lounging around in the various cushy armchairs. "Hi," I said, looking at each of them. Both of them were older, appearing to be in their late thirties. There was one man with black hair and piercing blue eyes, he had looked up from the papers in his hand and spent a few seconds staring at me, like he was trying to dissect my mind. He didn't smile and his mouth was set in a pinched line, like Edward's did when I was being puzzling and he was upset he couldn't take a peek in my head. The second man had wavy brown hair with blonde streaks running through it, he had a nice tan- not that I see very many of those around here- and a friendly smile. I smiled back at him gratefully, happy that he wasn't as cold as his friend, who was still apparently trying to read my mind.

Charlie began the introductions, "Agent Nicolas, Agent Samuel, this is my daughter Bella. Bella, Agent Nicolas and Agent Sam are here from the FBI to help with the serial killing cases." Agent Nicolas was the one with black hair, and Agent Samuel the one with brown hair.

I nodded at them, "Hello."

"Hello," they both responded politely. After a few seconds of awkward silence I looked at Charlie.

"I'm going to make lasagne for dinner, 'kay dad? Call me if you need anything." I told him, wanting to get away from Agent Nicolas' scrutinizing stare. I felt like some kind of lab experiment gone wrong.

Charlie shrugged, "You don't have to do that Bella- I was going to order pizza for all of us anyways."

I rolled my eyes, "I'm sure the agents have had more than enough pizza, and I _know _you have. There's no need to trouble yourselves." Charlie just shrugged bashfully while I walked out of the room and into the relative safety of the kitchen.

Within the small room, with the familiar yellow cupboards and tile floor, I was able to ignore the fact that there were two completely unknown FBI agents in the other room. I hoped that the Cullens could kill the newborn, then the case would be 'cold' and hopefully the feds would leave. I don't really want federal agents poking around in Charlie's house when I'm about to go die after graduation. It's not like I'm _asking _for another life-altering disaster, and having the feds in town is like just watching as one creeps up behind me.

I pulled out a tray and began layering the noodles, cheese and sauce for the lasagne. Popping it into the oven I set the timer for an hour and went up to my room to read for a little bit. I was halfway through Wuthering Heights when I heard the window slide open. I turned quickly and saw Edward climb in. He looked at me, "What's worrying you?"

I frowned at him, "Why do you assume something's worrying me?"

"You left your window closed," he said pointedly, "normally it's wide open, inviting miscreant creatures like myself in."

I shook my head, "I just forgot to open it again after you closed it last night."

Edward smirked, "That excuse would have worked- if I had closed it last night."

"So who closed it then?" I asked, mock glaring at him, "because it certainly wasn't me."

Edward shrugged, "Probably Charlie. He's probably really worried about you. You're his baby girl, and he knows about your ability to attract every accident within miles."

I shrugged too and opened my mouth up to reply when the timer went off downstairs. I froze for a few seconds before snapping myself out of it and saying, "I should go get that."

Edward sighed, "I should go help the others. I just wanted to come and check on you." He kissed me quickly before hopping back out the window, closing it behind him quietly. I turned and walked down the stairs and finished putting dinner onto plates. I took Charlie's and the Agent's into the living room where they were still busy working away and then took mine to the kitchen table.

I quietly ate my food, listening as hard as I could to their conversation. Their voices were quiet, but they carried in the quiet house, and even with a wall between me and them I could hear them clearly. Agent Nicolas had a colder voice, much more smooth than Agent Samuel's voice. Agent Samuel had a boisterous voice, it was cheerful and I had the feeling that when no one was being murdered it would be loud too. The two government men were exact opposites, and yet, I could see exactly how they would work well together. Agent Nicolas was the more serious of the two, but he tended to bear down too much on a case and make it personal. He couldn't really connect all that well with people. Agent Samuel was the exact opposite though, he cared about the people around the case, but he never took anything all the seriously.

I heard Agent Samuel speak, "So I've got the profile." Both Charlie and the other agent stopped their small talk and gave Agent Samuel their full attention. From the small talk I had been hearing, Agent Samuel dealt with the profiling of the murderer, while Agent Nicolas dealt only with the hard evidence. Samuel would give Charlie the profile, Charlie would name whoever fit the profile, and Agent Nicolas would go and find evidence that matched whoever fitted the profile to the crime scene- assuming the profile was right, and that there would be evidence for the agent to find at the crime scene.

Neither of those two things was likely to happen for the two agents though. I highly doubt that Agent Samuel is going to put 'is a bloodthirsty newborn vampire' on his profile. Agent Nicolas is out of luck for hard evidence too. Vampires have no fingerprints, their hair won't just fall out, and they don't sweat- most of them don't even wear shoes that would carry particulates of soil.

As brilliant as this partnership must be for normal cases, they're just not going to be able to solve this one. They're just going to get in the way of the people who are trying to kill the newborn.

Agent Samuel started to read off his profile, "So we're looking for a white male. He'll work an ordinary, menial job and keep to himself. He'll probably live and travel alone. If you look into his past you'll probably see a troubled childhood- given by the amount of rapid killing he's doing, and the large amount of violence and emotion he's putting into it, I'd assume that whatever it is happened quite recently, within the year. The killing is his way of feeling that he's in control of his life- in a way it's a very extreme form of PTSD. I'd assume that it was a female that did something horrifying to him. The female will probably have brown hair and brown eyes, and her facial structure will be similar to that of all the serial killer's victims. He's thinking that he's cleansing the world of the person who hurt him, while not actually harming the person herself- he'll still feel powerless against her, and it's likely he'll feel that way for the rest of his life."

I could practically feel Charlie wince at that, "So if we don't catch whoever did this, then he'll just keep killing for the rest of his life?"

"Yes." I heard Agent Samuel say shortly, "The good news is that killers like this tend to get sloppy after a while. They'll start to feel comfortable, and some of the thrill of killing will start to disappear for them, they'll start to need to do more than killing. He'll start to torture his victims, spend more time with them, and that'll make it a lot easier for us to catch him." responding to something he must have seen on Charlie's face, he then said, "Cheer up Charlie- even if we don't catch him, the bastard has to die eventually."

I winced at that, because I knew the only thing that Agent Samuel hadn't put on his very accurate profile- this killer was never going to keel over dead until someone made him keel over. My guess was that the brown haired female that the newborn was so eager to wipe off the planet was the one who turned him, and the traumatic event he'd suffered through was the change. The first few days after he woke up from three days of torture were probably equal to the troubled childhood Agent Samuel had mentioned. If you looked at the profile closely you could tell that everything made a kind of twisted sense.

Agent Nicolas spoke for the first time, "Judging by the wound on the bodies, you can already tell that the killer is getting to that stage. Decomposition says that this body is the oldest, almost four weeks old, then this one, three and a half weeks old, then this one which is three, then this one, then this one, then this one..." by the time he finished laying the photos down there was a total of eight victims. I knew I should have seen this one coming, they had been searching for bodies all day and the Cullens had told me a newborn vampire would hunt almost every day. The fact that they've only found eight is surprising. "The post-mortem wounds get more and more extensive for each victim. He's already started playing with them."

I shuddered, remembering how terrified I was when James was trying to torture me to death. It would have been ten times worse for these girls. I had gone for my death informed and prepared; knowing exactly what type of creature was killing me. Knowing that I was dying for someone I loved, and believing that Edward would continue living. Those poor girls wouldn't have known anything- all they would've been able to comprehend was that a monster was stabbing them and drinking their blood, and that there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. I can't even begin to describe how terrified they would've been. The sooner the Cullens take him out, the sooner I can sleep in peace.

Charlie spoken next, "Do you know who those girls are?" his voice was quiet, shaken. I wondered exactly how bad those pictures were. Curiosity gnawed at me, but it was the kind of curiosity I knew that I probably didn't want to pursue- unless, of course, I wanted to have nightmares.

Agent Nicolas spoke, "Only one was born in this area, her name is Lauren Mallory."

A wave of guilt washed over me- not because I felt guilty about Lauren's death, but because I didn't feel sad at all. Someone my age that I knew died and I couldn't even be sad about it? I knew she had never been all that nice to me, but still, you think I could muster up the courage to feel something more than sympathy for her.

"Three were identified as missing hikers- Sarah Sloane, Janet Emir and Lizzie Becker. Another one was here visiting family- Arietta Newton. The other three are all Jane Does; we've still got people working to identify them."

Another wave of sympathy came over me, the families of those three girls, and the others that I knew must be dead, would be worrying and fretting about their daughter's well being, always wondering whether they just ran away, or if something more sinister had happened.

"We're still looking over the scenes and bodies for trace evidence." He said, "Until then there's not much more we can do. We'll be back tomorrow morning, see if you can come up with a list of names that match the profile."

I heard Charlie and all of them get up. I hurriedly picked up Wuthering Heights and started reading and picking away at my virtually untouched dinner. I tried to make it look like I just eat really, really slow so that Charlie wouldn't think I was eavesdropping.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as the agents walked out through the door, bidding Charlie farewell and taking the case folder with them. I breathed a sigh of relief as they closed the door behind them and Charlie went back into the living room without noticing anything strange about where I was sitting.

I poured the other half of my uneaten dinner into the garbage and climbed up the stairs to the bathroom. I think I'm going to take a nice hot shower and then go to bed. The entire day has wiped all traces of energy from my system. "G'night Charlie." I said sleepily as I walked past him.

"Night Bells." He said, grinning tiredly at me, looking as if his day had been rougher than mine.

**Third Person POV**

Agent Nicolas and Agent Samuel were sitting in their car as they drove down the hole to their hotel. Both of them were intrigued by today's case, not because it was looking particularly difficult to solve- they were both positive that when the lab results came back tomorrow then solving it would be dead simple.

What intrigued them both was the sheer immensity of the case. The amount of trouble the killer was going to in order to get all of those girls alone must have been immense, and then the amount of torture being done also indicated immense effort. Both of them were wondering when the killer would have time to sleep.

Then there was the fact that the town itself seemed intriguing, the entire place had an undertone of conflict. "Did you notice the look on Bella Swan's face when she saw our car in her driveway?" Agent Samuel asked, looking at Agent Nicolas.

Agent Nicolas shook his head, "My back was to the window. I only heard her truck come in and turn off. I noticed it took her an awfully long time to get from turning off the truck to coming into the house though."

"She looked terrified. Absolutely terrified. I swear, she looked as if there were a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters in her house."

"I only noticed how she looked really relieved when we first came into the room," began Agent Nicolas, "but then when Charlie said we were FBI she got slightly worried looking. I wonder who she's protecting- our serial killer perhaps."

Agent Samuel shook his head, "No, she wants to stop him just as much as we do. Whenever Charlie said the word serial killer she got this look of total determination on her face. I get the impression that she knows something we don't though. It's like she's trying to stop him, but doesn't want any attention."

"That fits with what Charlie said to me about her- he said she had a big heart, but she'd rather stay out of any types of spotlights."

Agent Samuel nodded, "So do you want to go check out the gang activity that supposedly happens in La Push tomorrow?"

"Sure- Why do you want to look though?"

Almost all the women there have brown hair and brown eyes. It might be a good place to look for our serial killers old home. We'd be looking for someone who had a troubled family, our serial killer probably ran away from home, so we'd only be able to get information from there."

"What makes you think he isn't home anymore."

"He's killing really messily, blood everywhere. If he goes home then someone in his family would have noticed something my now and told someone."

Agent Nicolas shook his head, "That's all pure speculation you know. Really, there's no way of knowing what a serial killer will be like."

"Human minds follow a particular pattern. Trust me when I say that despite the brutality of his killings, this serial killer is really nothing new."

"Fifty bucks says you're wrong, and this case will beyond normal when we solve it."

"You're on."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Alright, so here we go again. Bella will start off the Chapter, but after that we'll be spending some time with the FBI Agents. Y'all know the drill, read and review.**

**Chapter Four- Darkened Glow**

**Bella POV**

I yawned and crawled out of bed. Edward had stopped to visit several times that night, but then had gone back out to scour the forest for any trace of the nomad's mind. He said that he'd been able to get mutterings once, but the nomad moved off before he could go catch him. I told him all the new information that the FBI agents had given me when I eavesdropped on them and he promised to tell his family.

It was summer holiday now, so I didn't have any school work to do, the house was clean and Charlie had food. I couldn't go hang out with Jacob- he had run away as soon as he could ditch the crutches without anyone being suspicious, and even if he was in town I doubt that he would want to talk to me. I figured I'd go out to the Cullen's house- I knew Esme always wanted help with her garden around this time of year, and she probably wouldn't be out hunting with the rest of her family.

Esme wasn't a fighter; she was sweet natured and hated hurting others, unless she had to she would normally just stay home while the others were out kicking vampire butt. I felt even worse about Victoria coming to kill me with a newborn army when I found that out- Esme had had to fight all because of me.

I went and headed downstairs to grab some food before I left, and was surprised to see Charlie sitting at the kitchen table. He normally left for work long before I managed to drag my sorry self out of bed. He looked equally surprised to see me, "You're up early Bells." He said calmly.

I paused and looked at the clock- six thirty. I had to refrain from groaning, I had thought that maybe for once I had gotten a normal amount of sleep without Edward sitting right beside me to make sure I slept. "I just felt like getting up," I said calmly, realizing I would have to wait a half an hour before I left for the Cullen house. After all, to any normal person visiting people at six thirty was slightly unacceptable.

He nodded, "Got any plans for today?"

I went over and poured myself a bowl of cereal, answering his question at the same time. "I was going to go help Esme with her garden. There's never any shortage of weeds this time of year, and I think the rest of the family was planning on going hiking."

Charlie smiled, he liked Esme more than he liked Edward, so I guess he figured that if I had to spend time with the Cullens at least I could spend time with Esme. "Have fun- I have to leave for work soon and I'd rather you weren't home alone."

Yes, because spending my time with a tiny little brown haired woman in the woods in the middle nowhere with a serial killer who just loves brown haired females is a lot safer.

"No problem Dad. Why are you going into work so early? Normally you don't leave until seven."

"I've got to have another meeting with the Feds. I've got a list of names that fit their profile."

"Oh..." I said shortly, "Have fun."

Charlie rolled his eyes and got up, heading for the door, "I'll try Bells. I'll try." I heard the door close behind him and waited for him to leave before heading upstairs to take a shower and get ready. I washed my hair slowly, trying not to rush- I'd just be bored when I got out if I did.

I frowned at the thin imprint in my skin from the rock I had pressed to my arm a few days ago in the fight with Victoria. I hadn't broken my skin with it, but I had pressed hard enough to leave a fairly nasty bruise. It had faded to all but a tiny brown spot now, but it was still a reminder of the fight. If the wolves hadn't helped then we'd be dead.

If the wolves hadn't helped...

That was it! Last night Edward had told me why he thought their family was having trouble catching the newborn. He said that it was because the killer hid in the rivers when they were on land, and hid on land when the Cullens got fed up and jumped into the rivers. There weren't enough of us to cover both the land and the water, but if we got the wolves to cover the land and the Cullens to cover the water...

I have to go call Edward.

I finished getting ready, rushing now and trying not to fall over on the slippery tile floor. I yanked my sweater and a pair of jeans on and rushed down the stairs, grabbing for the phone and calling Edward's cell phone. I tried all the other's phones, even Esme's.

No answer.

I guess it makes sense to keep you cell phone turned off when you're hunting a creature with super hearing, but it still irritated me. I ran over to the kitchen counter.

Alice had tuned her future seeing abilities to me lately, when I asked her why she said it was so that if anything bad happened she would know. I scoffed at her over protectiveness, but right now it might be useful.

Alice wouldn't see a happy Bella who figured out who the serial killer was, but she would see a desperate Bella who was trying to get a message to her. I pulled out a sheet of blank paper from a drawer, along with a thick black sharpie. I wrote in big, thick capital letters, hoping this would get her attention.

**ALICE- CALL ME.**

**I KNOW HOW TO CATCH HIM.**

**-BELLA**

Picking up the note I noticed that some of the sharpie had bled through the paper. "Oops." I muttered under my breath, but ceasing to worry about it when the phone started ringing. I hopped over to the phone, chanting "Please be Alice." Over and over again.

I picked up the phone, "Hello?"

"Oh... Bella?" it was Agent Nicolas, perhaps the one person in Forks who I didn't want to talk to right now. "Is your Dad still there?"

I shook my head, "No, he should have been at the station about twenty minutes ago. Why do you ask?"

Agent Nicolas replied quickly, and sounded slightly embarrassed. "We're staying in Seattle. We got a bit lost on all the back roads."

I had to refrain from breathing a sigh of relief, my nerves were definitely not the best right now, "Where abouts are you?"

"Not entirely sure. But there's a dirt road off to one side, and a cliff overlooking the ocean on the other."

How on earth did they manage to end up in La Push? They would have had to go all the way around Forks. "Okay, drive past the cliff and turn down the dirt road. That will take you into La Push. Once you're in La Push follow the highway until you hit Forks. The police station will be the very first building you come across."

"Thank you, Bella." Said Agent Nicolas calmly and I hung up the phone.

The second I hung up the phone started ringing yet again, I rolled my eyes and guess that the pixie vampire had finally decided that she could give me a call. "Alice?"

"Yes." I heard her respond, and I could practically hear her roll her eyes. "I saw you little mental post card. Tell me what your solution is then."

"You can't see it?"

"No. You haven't made a conscious decision to tell me. Besides that, it'll make you happier if you get to verbally tell me, since you seem oh-so-irritated at the fact that I tend to hold one sided conversations with you." She paused for a second, and I sat there stunned at her little rant. I heard her sigh on the other end of the phone, "Sorry Bella, vampires can have bad days too."

I shrugged, "It's okay. So I was thinking, the reason you guys are having trouble catching the killer is because there's not enough of you to cover water and land at once. I bet the wolves are having the exact same problem too, only theirs is because they can't cover water at all. What if the wolves cover land because they're faster, and you cover water because they can't swim at all."

There was a moment of dead silence on the other end of the phone. "Brilliant Bella. The idea never even occurred to us because there was only one newborn, and our collective forces aren't necessary to stop someone from dying. The wolves have a stronger sense of smell too, so they're definitely fit for tracking on land. We'll meet you at our house. Would you mind calling the mutts? I can guarantee they won't even pick up the phone for us."

I hung up on Alice and tried calling the wolves. Unsurprisingly they didn't pick up for me either. The minute I chose Edward was the minute I became a full blown bloodsucker in their minds. I debated what to do next, go to the Cullens house, or drag my butt down to La Push and get a few doors slammed in my face.

Choices, choices.

The more mature part of me was telling me to go to La Push and put up with the embarrassment, I could just go knock on Emily's door. The pack practically lived there, or at least Emily herself would be there. I could always do what Jacob did to me and leave them a note.

But they all hate me now, and I used to practically live there while Edward was gone.

That argument was weak and selfish. I know what I should do. It'll take me all of twenty minutes, and it could save dozens of brown haired girls. I braced myself and climbed into my tuck, heading to La Push. The trees seemed to crawl past my window, even though I was driving at a faster pace than I normally did.

I pulled into Emily's driveway and winced slightly, ringing the doorbell and praying that Jacob wouldn't be here. I doubted it, but if he stopped in for one of Emily's huge muffins then the situation would be ten times worse.

Emily opened the door, got one look of me and tried to slam it into my face. Frankly, if I were her I would have reacted the same way, but this wasn't about me. I stuck my foot in the door and winced as the door crushed my foot. "Emily, I know you hate my guts right now, but I need to talk to Sam. It's about the serial killer. You can slam the door in my face after we've talked."

Emily cautiously opened the door again. "What do you want Bella?"

**Agent Nicolas POV**

We pulled slowly through La Push, the roads were slippery and we didn't feel like hurrying. We were going to have to come back later today, so we might as well get a feel for the place today. It was a small village and most of the families seemed to have average or small incomes. We had been right, this would probably be a good place to look.

We drove past a house; just through the trees I could see Bella Swan ringing a doorbell. A woman with long parallel scars across her face opened the door and immediately attempted to close it. Bella jammed her foot in and said something, the woman promptly opened the door up. "Stop the car Sam. There's something fishy going on here." We stopped the car and crept up, hiding in the dense tree cover. The woman just finished whatever question she was asking and Bella spoke.

"The wolves have tried to find him right? And he jumps into the nearest waterway before they can get him?" the woman nodded. And Bella kept going, "he does the same thing to us, except we start in the water. I think we're going to need to work together on this one, just like we did with Victoria and her army. We can swim through the rivers and flush him out, and you can wait along the banks for when he climbs out."

The woman nodded, "It's a good plan," she said hesitantly, "Sam will probably help you and your... family." The word 'family' came from her mouth grudgingly, like she wasn't quite ready to accept it. Bella just nodded her head thankfully.

"So you'll tell him, Emily?" Bella was reluctant to leave, but also seemed to want to guarantee that this woman was going to tell 'Sam'.

Emily nodded again, "Yes." Bella turned to leave, seeming to know how unwelcome she was. Before she got to her car Emily yelled, "Bella- wait!"

Bella stopped dead and turned around, her face seeming surprised. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I slammed the door in your face," Emily babbled out, "I was just so angry you chose Edward. We all kind of figured you'd marry Jake and be a wolf girl with us." Bella still had her face turned towards me, and the look of complete and utter shock on it would be priceless if things didn't seem so serious.

Bella chuckled, it seemed kind of watery, "I never meant to marry him, Emily. He asked to kiss a lot, but I thought I made it clear I didn't like him that way. Like a brother, but not like that."

Emily laughed too, her eyes starting to fill up, "You did, the poor boy just couldn't see." She hesitated for a moment, biting her lip, "We figured it would progress. But if you don't mind my asking, why did you choose Edward? You're going to have to _die _for him, become a vampire." The way she said it made it clear she thought it worse than anything on the planet. The amount of emotion on her face shocked me.

Sam and I both traded shocked looks, were these girls playing a video game or something? Or was there some really bad gang activity going on in the area.

Bella shrugged, "If Sam was a vampire, and you were still imprinted to him- we call it mated- would you die to be with him?"

Emily closed her eyes for a few seconds, "Yes." She said, nodding. "The imprinting tied us together. I see your point, I know the bond is just as strong, especially after Victoria."

Bella laughed again, "That one hardly counts. Their bond was for convenience only, that's normally what happens with nomads. They don't care about anything but the hunt."

Emily shook her head and said, "She gave us enough trouble as it is. Are you sure this is what you want?"

I couldn't see Bella's facial expression, but she said something that seemed to shock Emily. "Believe me when I say this was my choice, Emily, you all look at it as the end of the world, but it isn't. I'll still be Bella, I'll just be a lot more durable. The change only heightens, it never takes away."

"How do you know they're not lying?"

"They've spent the past two weeks trying to scare me out of it to make sure it's what I really want. If there were any unknown side effects then I'd definitely know about it by now."

Emily sighed, "You know that that would break the treaty, and there would be a war? You'd be unable to help them, I heard what the boys said Bella. Newborns are strong, but completely unskilled."

Bella's posture changed entirely, becoming assertive. Her facial expression said she was both exasperated and furious, "It doesn't have to be a war, Emily. It is my choice. No innocents are being hurt and we'll move away from La Push to a completely remote area. No one will get hurt."

That made us realize that whatever this game was, it was completely real. There was something seriously wrong in the town of Forks.

Emily's voice was soft, "Except you."

"Life without Edward would hurt even more. I can't even breathe right without him. Besides that- I hate how we have to draw lines. Absolutely hate it. If you ever get a chance, tell Sam that there doesn't have to do it anymore."

Emily shrugged, "I will, but it won't help. You know that."

Bella sighed, "I do. If you ever want to ignore the lines, come over to my house- I've made it neutral territory. No snarky comments about the opposing species allowed."

Emily nodded, saying she would before continuing to make sure Bella was making the right choice."Have you thought about how you'll have to leave Charlie. You all seem so terrified about the Vol- what are they called again?"

"Volturi." Bella said softly, she seemed to be unable to find the words to describe their emotions, "And yes, we're all terrified of them. They're... they're so scary it's hard to find a way to describe them. And for good reason too. They're ruthless, completely and utterly ruthless. They'll do whatever they can to protect the secret. And I'm not kidding when I say they've murdered millions to do so. They gave us a chance because they're interested in Edward and Alice's gifts, but if they come back in two or three months and I'm human... they'll kill us, regardless of our abilities. There is only one set rule for the vampire world."

"Don't be conspicuous?" Emily guessed shrewdly.

Bella shook her head, "In a way, but that's more of a result of the rule. The rule itself is even more basic; you don't provoke the Volturi, not unless you want to die."

"And you marched into Volterra, ready to challenge them. Dear god Bella, Jake was right. You definitely are suicidal."

I looked at Sam, I was a trained psychologist, which meant that I could tell the small signs of someone lying. None of those signs were present right now. Bella was telling the absolute truth to that woman, and that woman was telling the absolute truth to Bella. I frowned, still sure I walked into this conversation and heard it out of context.

Bella huffed, "I am not. I just have my priorities."

Emily laughed and shook her head, "Do you want to come in and grab a muffin? I know you'll have to go tell the Cullens what I promised to tell Sam, but I don't want to let you leave on an empty stomach." Bella laughed and nodded eagerly, following the woman inside the house.

Sam and I stood up and snuck back to the jeep. He looked at me, breathless, "You're the psychologist. Are they telling the truth? Are they insane? They have to be insane- right?"

I shook my head, "They're telling the absolute truth. And neither of them is showing any signs of being insane. If they are insane, we should look for things that could affect the whole town. I think I got at least eight different people who are involved in it in that conversation, and we all know there's going to be more."

He sighed, "Can't we do something."

I shrugged, "We'll see, but I know what we can't do. Until we find out what's really going on, we don't say a single thing to Chief Swan- this is way over his head, and his daughter is neck deep in whatever it is."

Sam nodded sulkily, he was the kind of guy who enjoyed blurting things out, but judging by Bella Swan's absolute terror of discovery, that was the last thing they wanted to do.

I leaned back into the seat of the car as we headed down the road to the Forks police station. "So let's go over the facts partner- that conversation was so out of context for me that I want to make sure I heard everything right." This was one of the reasons we were so good at what we did, we communicated every possible fact we could to make sure we would never be kept in the dark accidently by each other.

"Fact one- Forks and La Plush are home to two separate groups that call themselves the wolves and the vampires."

Sam nodded, "Accepted."

"Fact two- Bella and Emily act as go betweens for the two groups."

"Accepted."

"Fact three- Bella has chose to become a member of the vampires- whether they're talking actual monsters or gangs is unsure."

"Accepted."

"Fact four- despite Bella choice and enmity between the two groups, they do work together on occasion, and they are hunting something right now."

"Accepted."

"Fact five- Because of Bella's choice there is going to be a war."

"Accepted."

"Fact six- Because of her choice, Bella is leaving Forks forever in an attempt to protect people and prevent a war."

"Accepted."

"Fact seven- there is an unknown third group that goes by the name of Volturi."

"Accepted."

"Fact eight- this group is insanely powerful, because they are strong enough to scare to separate groups of powerful people."

"Denied, you're just speculating with that one Nicolas."

"Fine then. Fact eight- the group is intimidating."

"Accepted."

"Fact nine- something is seriously creepy about this whole thing."

"_Definitely_ accepted."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: And here's the next Chapter, I won't spend all my useless time babbling at you since hardly anyone reads authors notes anyways. For those of you who are actually reading this, then please, review! I love them.**

**Chapter Five- Behind Closed Doors**

**Bella POV**

I pulled up the driveway into the Cullens house. I walked through the front door in a good mood, I was friends with Emily again and the wolves were going to help us hunt the vampires. I figured that there was absolutely nothing on the planet that could ruin my mood right now- short of the Volturi showing up and murdering everyone, of course.

Looking back on that attitude, I think I should have added more things to the 'short of' list.

Like a couple of FBI agents finding out about the existence of vampires, for example.

I stared at Alice in horror, she had just told me who had overheard mine and Emily's conversation, "I'm so sorry." I was near tears because of the guilt and worry that had just been dropped on my head, I let it slip. I let the secret that I swore never to tell anyone, "I should have done something. I could have..." I trailed off for a few seconds, trying to think of something I could have done.

Emmett snorted and Edward sent Jasper a look, I felt happier suddenly and less guilty. I sent Jasper and Edward a glare that could have roasted flesh. "Guys, you should not be calming me down after I've screwed up this much."

This time all of the Cullens in the room snorted. Alice shook her head, "Bella, you're being irrational. There was absolutely no way for you to know that they overheard the conversation. You thought that they were miles away in the Forks police station. It's random chance that I managed to get a glimpse of them watching you before the wolves got too close. Really, there was nothing anyone could have done."

"I could have never gone down to La Push."

"That was unavoidable. You had to go down to La Push in order to stop the serial killer. If you hadn't put yourself on the line like that then I'd probably think a lot less of you."

"I could have talked to Emily inside her house."

"Only if she had invited you in, and I'd like to point out she didn't do that until it was too late. The only people who are at fault right now are the agents themselves."

"So what do we do then?"

"Wait, right now they think that it's just some really, really bad gang activity. We're trying to see if there's a way to promote that idea."

Only in Forks, Washington would to people attempt to trick the FBI into thinking there was a huge gang war in order to cover up the fact that mythical creatures do exist.

Then again, only in Forks are there these many supernatural creatures and their conflicts. We could be in the Guinness book of world records.

Wouldn't the Volturi just love that? I'm pretty positive that if we were to do that, then we'd have the entire vampire race trying to destroy us.

I turned my thoughts back to the task at hand. Alice was talking to me and I knew that I should probably be paying attention instead of thinking about mythical world records. "So you're going to need to go back to La Push and tell Emily who overheard your conversation. While you're there make sure to talk to Sam in person- if you can, bring him back here so we can get started. Whatever you do, do not go to your house. The Agents are there and they're waiting for you so that they can question you while you're alone."

I nodded, "got it." I'm surprised they're letting me out of the house after what happened last time.

Alice nodded again, "And don't go down highway thirteen on your way to La Push. The Agents will try to pull you over, and you truck sucks at the 'high speed' part of 'high speed car chase', so that would just end badly."

"I could just drive, really, really slowly. My truck is such a tank that they'd never be able to take it out."

Alice gave me a funny look, "If I didn't know that you aren't actually serious, I'd be very, very worried."

I shook my head and walked out the door, "I'm going Alice, relax. I'm going to go down the back dirt road, so hopefully no one will try to kill me- catch me, I mean catch me. I just get so used to saying some things, and people are normally trying to kill me, not catch me."

Alice rolled her eyes and said, "Maybe we should ask them to come here. You aren't talking well right now, if the agents do pull you over then you would not be able to tell a smooth lie."

I shook my head again, "No. I'm fine, Alice. This is nothing, really. The worse they can do is tell the press, but they won't tell the press unless they have more information. Albeit, when I say 'the worse they can do is tell the press', I definitely do not say it with a light heart. If we caused that kind of thing we'd end up painfully dead."

I went outside and climbed up into my truck, heading back into La Push. I stopped at Emily's house again, taking care to park my truck where it wouldn't be visible from the road and then going in through the side door, into the kitchen. Emily was cooking (she spent a lot of time doing that, no food ever had the time to go bad in her house) and she turned around to look at me as I came through the door.

"Bella? Why are you here?" she asked, "I mean, not that I mind, but you were here less than a half an hour ago."

"I have some bad news."

She looked at me, her face worried. "Is everyone okay? Did the killer get someone else?"

I shook my head, "The agents were hiding in the bushes last time we talked. They heard every word we said."

She laughed, "Oh..." she was silent for a few seconds, "Bella, don't scare me like that! I thought someone had died. We can deal with this, right?"

I nodded, not wanting to burst her bubble that this was as scary as it got in the vampire world, "Yes, we can. I just wanted to warn all of you that they'd be coming around asking some questions. Please, whatever you do, do not tell them the truth. Think of what the Volturi would do to every last person in this town if we spilled the beans. Can you tell the pack what happened?"

Emily nodded, "I will, they'll be back in ten minutes. Do you want to stay and tell them yourself? They've already stopped by once, so they know we're working with you on this one. Sam was planning on calling the Cullens tonight."

I thought that one through; I hadn't talked to anyone in the pack, excluding Seth, in ages. It would be awkward, but it could turn out well. "Sure. It'll be nice to talk to everyone again."

She nodded, "Good. I was going to tie you to the chair if you said no."

I started laughing, the giggles progressing to howling, "Can you see how badly that could go?" I managed to choke out, "they'd walk in, see me tied to a chair and assume that I attacked you, but since you're super-Emily you managed to kick my butt, immobilize me and tie me up while you waited for the big scary wolves to come home."

Emily giggled too, "I can see the potential disaster that would cause."

We talked for a while longer and I was struck again by how brilliant Emily was, she was quiet around people she didn't know much, but once she got to know you it was like a switch was flipped and she would become a very opinionated, strong young woman. I realized my mistake- Emily and I had been friends when Edward was gone, mostly because I was hiding in her house so much, but when Edward came back we had gone our spate ways. Now that I was getting along with her again, she was just one more person I was going to have to avoid when I became a newborn. Not only that, but her soul mate was probably going to try to kill me, and if I kill him I would be very effectively killing her.

I really, _really _wish that we could all just get along instead of trying to rip each other's throats out constantly. It would make my life (and my soon-to-be-not life) so much easier.

I heard the front door open and several pairs of footsteps walking into the room. "Hey Emily!" I heard Embry call, "Man- what is that reek. It smells like Bella!" he yelled as he came around the corner. "Bella, you stink."

I shook my head, "Looks like I need to find some better deodorant then."

Seth came around the corner, snickering, "It wouldn't help, not unless you were planning to take a bath in the stuff."

The entire pack filed into Emily's house, and when they wouldn't all fit in her tiny kitchen we all moved into the living room. Leah got one glimpse of me and headed straight for the door, I didn't blame her, in her mind vampires had caused every last one of her problems. There were two boys there that I had never seen before, I assumed that they were Collin and Brady. One of them looked over at Paul and said, "Who's that chick? She smells like a bloodsucker."

Paul just shot me a look and said, "That's Bella Swan, and she smells like a bloodsucker because she's married to one of them. She's kind of nice, but she wants to be one of them."

"Eeeww... that's just nasty." said the other. I had to refrain from rolling my eyes, looks like Sam managed to drill pack morals into the heads of these two perfectly.

I rolled my eyes, "Thanks Paul. Now I sound like some kind of freak who stalks vampires. Hell, even worse, you make me sound like Gianna."

Paul saluted mockingly, "No problem, Bella. Happy to help. And who the hell is Gianna?"

"Long story, and one that is going to have a very ugly ending. You really just don't want to know." I said, I had forgotten that they didn't know who she was, I was so used to being around the Cullens.

Sam turned to look at me, "So Bella, why are you here?"

"We have a huge problem, when I was talking to Emily we were on the front doorstep. It would have been fine except right when we started talking the FBI agents drove by and thought we were up to something fishy. They got out and hid in the bushes, and since Emily and I are the only two people in this town who don't have super senses, we had no idea they were there. They heard the entire conversation, and they know the secret."

Sam swore, "Do you count this as a breach of the treaty?"

I shook my head, "No, none of your pack intentionally told a human, so it's being looked at as one big mistake."

"So why is it a problem then?"

"You remember how after the fight with the newborns Alice saw three vampires coming and sent you lot running?"

Sam nodded, "Of course. Failing to see how this is pertinent though."

"I'm working on it. Give me a few seconds. Okay, so those three vampires were Jane, Felix and Demitri. They're members of the Volturi guard, which consist of over forty vampires. The Volturi are kind of like the ruling coven of the vampire world, and they only have one rule- keep the secret. When I found out about the existence of vampires and the Cullens didn't kill me, we broke that rule. There is really only one saying in the vampire world, 'you don't provoke the Volturi, not unless you want to die'. Normally having even one living human knowing the secret would provoke them. We got lucky, since Aro respected Carlisle, they let it slide when they found out, their one condition however, was that I had to be changed before next time they checked up on me."

I took a deep breath, "I'm pretty positive you've all noticed how I'm not a vampire yet. The only reason they didn't kill us after the fight with the newborns was because that wasn't the problem they were sent to deal with. They'll come back though, and if when they come back and _three _humans know about the secret and two of them are government officials, then that'll be it. They'll wipe us off of the face of the planet and there'll be nothing we can do to stop them."

"We can take them." said Embry confidently.

I almost growled at him, "No, Embry, you can't. Take on the Volturi and they will bring fire and brimstone. There is absolutely nothing you can do against them, think Embry, it took all of us to deal with a coven of newborns and it would've taken the Volturi only three people. There are over forty, mature and insanely gifted vampires in that coven. We don't stand a chance against them."

Embry shifted uncomfortably, "They could've been the three strongest vampires of the coven, the others could all be weak."

I laughed darkly, "No, Jane is one of the most powerful, but she is not the strongest. Neither Felix or Demitri have offensive gifts, so they don't even come close."

I think I finally may have gotten it through their thick sculls, Sam looked at me, "So what do we need to do to make it seem like the agents heard the wrong things when they overheard you and Emily?"

"The Cullens are working on it right now, but we're thinking that maybe we could make it look like a gang war."

Seth nodded appreciatively, "It's a good plan."

"So we were wondering if you wanted to come over to the Cullen's house to nail out the details of our masquerade."

"No. How about we meet halfway, in the same place we went to practice fighting Vitoria's coven."

I nodded, "I'll ask. Do you mind if I use your phone?"

I went and called the Cullens, I had originally been planning to get Sam to call them, but I realized that he really didn't trust them and I didn't feel like spending an hour listening to the two groups calling each other variations of 'dog' and 'leech'. Really, I have better things to do with my time. I called the Cullen's house, "Hello?"

It was Alice, "Hey Alice. The wolves didn't want to meet you at your house, so they were wondering if you would like to meet them at the same place we met when you were training to fight Victoria's newborns."

"Sure. Can you ask them if they can bring you here, normally we would, but I highly doubt the dogs are going to let us come and pick you up."

"Sam, Alice wants to know if she can come and pick me up so I can get to the clearing."

"Tell her I say no." Was his immediate response.

"You totally called that one." I told her. Alice didn't say anything, she just started laughing. I turned around again.

"She wants to know if you can get me there somehow." I asked Sam, hoping that he wouldn't say someone could carry me. After a while I get tired of people treating me like I'm made of glass.

Sam turned to Seth, "Can you carry her, Seth?" I refrained from sighing.

Seth nodded, "Sure, sure."

I turned back to the phone, "Did you catch that."

"Of course. Ask them if they want to meet there in twenty minutes or so." Alice responded happily. It takes a lot to make Alice unhappy, you'd think all the stuff happening would do it, but she just keeps on bouncing.

"Sam, they want to know if twenty minutes sounds good to you." I called to the living room.

"Tell them we'll be there before them."

"Definitely not. I do not need to serve as the mouthpiece while you fling insults at each other." Turning back to the phone I said, "they'll be there, Alice. See you later."

"See you later, Bella." We both hung up and I turned back to the wolves. They had already managed to devour the huge amounts of food Emily had prepared for them. Really, I'm surprised that she didn't go broke trying to feed all of them. Maybe they had a pack food money pool, or maybe they got discounts at the grocery store for being able to turn into huge, hairy wolves.

Sam stood up and the pack members did too, I still found it slightly ominous how they all moved in synch, even when they weren't in wolf form. They all acted like once they were out of wolf form, the bond wasn't as strong. I doubt that that's the case; I think the bond between them is just as strong, it just isn't as loud. "Let's go." Sam ordered calmly, he turned to Emily and kissed her quickly, murmuring something to her.

I tried to ignore them and walked over to Seth, "You sure you want to carry me all the way there?" I asked him, "I'm kind of heavy, you should probably let me walk part of the ways."

Seth laughed and I realized that my ploy to walk a bit and not be treated like glass had totally fail. "Nah, you weigh next to nothing. And Edward would kill me if I let you trip and fall, not to mention it would take twice as long for you to walk."

"Fine." I huffed.

I hopped on his back piggy back style and we headed out the door. Since this was just a strategy session none of them were going to bother phasing so that they could speak. In a way it showed some of their very slight trust for the Cullens. They still thought of them as the enemy, but they weren't totally unwilling to talk to them anymore.

A definite improvement, too bad it would be gone the minute I got bitten.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: And here you all go, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to those of you who have alerted and favourited, things like that really make my day (reviews however, make my day even more, so you should do that too!).**

**Chapter Six- Map of Bones**

**Bella POV**

We reached the clearing in less than ten minutes. I refrained from snickering when I saw the dejected looks on the wolves faces when they realized that the Cullens had managed to beat them there. I hoped that their competitive attitude wouldn't result in an hour of wasted time because they felt the need to posture, flex their muscles and growl at each other. You'd think that since they're supposedly all superhuman beings that they'd realize that no one but themselves cares which of them can make the scarier growling noises.

I went and stood over with the Cullens, I liked the pack, but I knew where my loyalties lay. As much as the pack may try to talk me out of my choice, they just had to realize that I was part of a family of vampires now and that there wasn't a single thing that they could do that would make me change my mind. The minute Edward and I said 'I do' and we had you-know-what, then I'd become a vampire. I knew how many people I would be hurting- Charlie, Jacob, Renee, Mike, Angela and many others- but I just couldn't bring myself to change my mind. There were some things that were meant to be, some things that were going to happen no matter what I did, and me falling in love with Edward and undergoing the change was definitely just one of those things.

The pack and my family stood on two opposite sides of the clearing, Carlisle inclined his head towards the pack. "Sam." He greeted politely. I could feel the tension crackling in the air between the two groups, this wasn't the same as when we had been fighting Victoria, even though there was more to risk there. This was the kind of tension that was aroused from the breaking of promises, and then the attempt to fix them so that the two hurt groups could work together. Like a boyfriend and girlfriend who had just broken up, but still had to work on a project without killing each other. To the wolves, my willingness to become a vampire was like the ultimate betrayal, and to us, the wolves' need to have people killed over a choice someone made was equally evil.

"Carlisle," Sam returned, "I understand that you want to work together again to stop the serial killer. What is your plan?" his voice was polite, but there was a slight challenge to it. The challenge seemed to be saying, 'we're here, but we doubt that a group of leeches like you actually want to help us save human lives', so we might as well get down to talking about why you're really here.

Carlisle ignored his tone and nodded, "Our plan is fairly simple. I'm sure that you've noticed how the monster is travelling by both land and water ways. Our problem is that neither of our groups can patrol both sections on our own without leaving a bunch of gaps that the newborn can get out of. If we split it though, so that my family is flushing him out of the water while your pack waits on the land to pick him off."

Sam nodded; walking up to a dirt patch in the center of the clearing he knelt down beside it and started drawing what looked to be a map of some kind in the dirt. Carlisle went up to meet him and the rest of us stayed back, just like the rest of the wolf pack stayed back. I noticed Sam begin to shake for a few seconds when Carlisle approached, but once Carlisle knelt down beside Sam, giving up the advantage he would have over Sam if he were to attack him, Sam stopped shaking and they were both able to concentrate on the task.

Sam pointed at the map. "This is the newborns territory. We'll have to do a grid search to flush him out while a few of us stay towards the front for when he tries to outrun us." He pointed up to the ocean, the place where they would be herding the newborn to, "Leah, Seth and Collin will go here. Leah, you're in charge of that specific area." He pointed at the three rivers where the Cullens would be swimming. "There will be one of us running beside you at every river. I'll figure that out later, it shouldn't really matter to you lot." That would be secret Sam speak for 'I'm not going to tell you exactly how my pack is going to split up so that you can massacre us all and drink out blood'.

I had to refrain from rolling my eyes at his challenging tone. Really, Sam needs to understand that we're not out to get him and the only dangerous person in the area is the serial killer and we're trying to help the wolves get rid of him.

Carlisle nodded, seeing Sam's ploy and not bothering to bring it up "Okay, will two days be enough for you? We can meet here on Monday and get started with the hunt." He asked, wanting to give Sam a choice in the matter so that Sam wouldn't feel like he was being forced into anything.

Sam nodded, "Fine." He said shortly, standing up quickly and striding over to the rest of his pack, clearly happy to be able to walk away from the Cullens. Just as he and his pack were about to leave he turned around, "By the way, just to be clear, the fact that we're working together doesn't change the treaty on this one. None of these rivers run anywhere near town, so if I catch you sniffing around La Push without a bloodthirsty newborn there then there will be hell to pay. That's not the only thing about the treaty that doesn't change, of course, but you already knew that." He finished, casting a sideways glance at me.

All of the Cullens except Carlisle let out low growls, I looked back at Sam, meeting his gaze unflinchingly, "It's my choice Sam. We'll leave so that we don't put a single person in danger. I don't want to ever have to fight a single one of you, but I will if I need to." I gestured back to the Cullens, "This is my family Sam, I'll fight for them, I'll die for them. I think you need to understand that before you declare all out war. It's a war that you're destined to lose- don't put your pack in that kind of danger, keep them alive so that you can protect the humans that need your protection, instead of getting them killed to kill off the one family that doesn't hurt humans."

Sam nodded, "I've thought it through Bella, I'm still thinking, but we'll see- as long as you get away from La Push for a few centuries while you're a newborn it really doesn't matter to me. After all, I don't make my anyone in my family die for me, and you're right about war." He smirked, "After all, they probably cheat."

That was supposed to be a stinging comment, but for some reason it just didn't hit home on me, "Not one single person is making me Sam, it's my choice." He slipped up there, he let the Cullens know that if he got into a fight with them he thought his pack was destined to lose. I frowned, it was a very un-Sam like slip-up, normally he's guarded around the Cullens it's a wonder that he speaks.

I wondered about the other thing he had said, he had said that he was thinking about it. That sounded like they were being a lot looser with the treaty than they normally are. I wondered, the only two people who had told me war was guaranteed no matter where we moved were Emily and Jacob. Emily had probably never bothered to check with Sam that anything other than war was possible, she had never cared, so she never bothered finding out, which would probably mean that her opinion wasn't quite as official as Sam's. Then there was Jacob, but let's face it- I definitely should not be trusting his opinion, especially considering he'd lie to me and tell me that if he thought it was going to make me rethink my choice.

It's really not making me rethink my choice, in fact, it's doing the exact opposite. I had been feeling dreadfully sorry for him up until now, but the minute I found out that he had told me a lie that made me believe that the safety of both the pack, and my family was jeopardized; well now I was just pissed off at him. Very, very pissed off at him.

So pissed off that I was debating going and grabbing that crowbar and then finding him and murdering him with it. Then I'll get Edward to bite his throat and dump him in a place so that it looks like the serial killer did it. Then I'll sit back and laugh as the annoying FBI agents try to figure out why the serial killer changed his MO as a desperate attempt to catch said uncatchable serial killer.

Sam frowned at me, continuing our conversation, "Really Bella? What about those Volturi people then. Sounds a lot to me like they're making you."

Emmett laughed derisively, answering my question for me, "I'd pick a fight with them any day if I had to in order to protect Bella. Any of us would, Sam. We stand up for each other."

"Even if it's suicide?"

Emmett rolled his eyes, "Even if it's suicide." I was just thankful that he didn't say that he could defeat the Volturi. I just spent twenty minutes drilling it into the wolves' thick heads that the Volturi are completely and utterly unbeatable.

Sam nodded, "I'll think about it."

With those final words he and the pack walked into the woods behind them, leaving us just standing there. Alice frowned, "We need to get back to the house. The FBI agents will be there to visit in about twenty minutes."

I frowned, "Great. Just great. So what's our story?"

Alice snickered, "You and Emily are playing a virtual reality video game that takes place in Forks."

"What happened to gang activity?"

"We had to ditch it because we saw them tell Charlie, and then all three of them found out the truth and then Charlie called Renee, who screeches it out right beside a news reporter with a camera as he talks to her about the development of children's minds at a kindergarten level. Really Bella, only you would have the luck of having your mother find out that you're dating a vampire in front of a local news camera." She finished, laughing slightly at my misfortune.

I winced, "So they don't find out with this one?" I asked, my face hopeful.

Alice shook her head, "But look on the bright side," she said cheerfully, "At least they don't tell Charlie with this one. And the entire human population doesn't find out. And we all don't get tortured to death by the Volturi. Frankly, I'm starting to see this as a better option."

I frowned thinking, "What are the possible outcomes for this one?"

Alice shook her head, "There are two logical ones, the first is that the agents believe your story and decide that they don't want to investigate further, because they have bigger problems on their hands. That one, however, is very unlikely. The second is the most possible, it basically happens like this: they look closer, find out that we're lying, interrogate us while we give them a speech about why to keep quiet, and then leave us in peace when we tell them that we killed the serial killer. There's a lot of potential for that one to go wrong though, they could hear us talking about the Volturi and run off to Italy to stop them from killing more innocent humans, which would end very badly for us, they could let it slip around Charlie, which could also end very badly for us, or they try to kill us, one of us loses control because they're threatening our family and we kill them. All in all, it's not good, but it's the best we got."

I frowned, thinking that one through. "Alice, what if we just skip right to the 'tell them why we don't want to be exposed' part. After all, they find out eventually, so it's inevitable that we'll end up doing it. That will also take out most of the potential negative outcomes from the current plan, because they'll be informed enough not to do anything extremely stupid like they were planning. It would also mean that we can probably get them out of Forks while we deal with the serial killer, they'll just declare the case closed and leave for us."

Alice tapped her chin, blanking out momentarily while she was checking the future for the outcome of that situation, "It's risky Bella, the overall outcome is good, but it is _very, very _risky. If we slip up even once in the conversation then things will go boom. But if we don't slip up the outcome is very good." Alice looked at Edward, the only other person in the room who could see exactly what she was seeing, "What do you think?" she asked, probably saying it aloud only for my benefit, everyone in the family was used to just having people talk to Edward through their minds, it still drove me absolutely insane though, and they all knew that.

Edward nodded, "It could work, the idea certainly has potential. I'm worried about that part halfway through, though. If we do what we normally do in these situations then we'd be in trouble."

Alice nodded, about to respond, when Emmett cut her off, "Guys, why don't we share the vision. I don't know about everyone else in the room, but this is getting slightly cryptic and annoying."

"Thank you Emmett." I told him, hoping that I would finally be able to figure out what the hell they were talking about.

Emmett reached over and ruffled my hair, "No problem baby sister." I shot him a glare that could have roasted flesh before lifting his hand off my head. Or rather, trying to lift his hand off my head, eventually he realized what I was trying to do with the meagre force I was exerting on his arm and he lifted his hand out of my hair for me.

Edward just rolled his eyes, "You all know how we do this normally, with the exception of what we did with you Bella, because we weren't actually trying to scare you away, we normally use the Volturi's reputation to scare whatever human found out away from us and the media. But the FBI agents have dealt with mass-murdering gangs before, and they won't see the Volturi as a three thousand year old coven of vampires, they'll see them as a really bad gang and think that they can deal with them. They can't, so in the conversation we're going to have to avoid all mention of the Volturi. _All _mention. We can't even let one word slip."

I choked slightly, "Alice, did you factor the conversation I had with Emily in?"

Alice shook her head, "The parts that I saw, why?"

"Because Emily and I talked about the Volturi in that conversation and the agents probably heard us. I'm guessing that you never saw that part?"

Alice zoned out for a few seconds, when she came back out of it she let out a snarl before saying, "Well that changes everything. Good catch Bella, that could have been very ugly. I couldn't figure out why they kept bringing it up in half of the visions I was having, I assumed one of us slipped up and brought it up. I guess that this means that we have to go with the video game plot." She sighed, apparently disappointed. The video game plot was definitely the shakier of the two- it could go wrong in so many ways, after all.

But then again, it was the best that we could do. I was about to open my mouth when the doorbell rang, all the Cullens froze, becoming statues. Alice gestured for everyone but me, Carlisle, Jasper, her and Edward to leave the room. Jasper started throwing calming waves around the room and everyone else sat down around the table. Alice produced a deck of cards. The doorbell rang again and Carlisle went to answer it while we set out a bunch of cards to make it look like we were engaged in a game of crazy eights. I frowned, remembering how cool and collected the Cullens had seemed when I first came here- had they been doing the same thing for me then as they were doing for the FBI agents now?

I turned to ask Alice, but she saw my question and nodded her head at me and winked. I had to refrain from glaring at them, knowing how bad that would look when the FBI agents came into the room, figuring that if I had the nerve to fall in love with their vampire brother, the least they could do was act like they normally did. I love how they all normally act, with the exception of how Rosalie acts they're all quite fun to be around. And to add to that fact, Rosalie was the only one who _wasn't _acting at that first meeting, she had made it perfectly clear how very much she hated me. I think she likes me a little bit more now, but our relationship is by no means golden.

I heard two pairs of heavy footsteps heading into the room, followed by Carlisle's quieter, smoother ones.

Here come the cavalry.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: And here you all go, this is actually one of my favourite chapters, so I hope that you all enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, you should definitely leave a review saying you did so I know that I'm on the right track.**

**Chapter Seven- Truthful Lies**

**Agent Nicolas**

I drove up the long narrow, driveway to the Cullen household. Charlie was right, these people really did live in the middle of nowhere. That could indicate any number of things to me, but the most important is that the Cullen's value their privacy. After all, why bother to go to all the trouble of building a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere, where no one could see it and where you were miles away from stores, schools and work, when you could build an identical one in the middle of the town. So, why build this house here? What are they trying to hide? I'd bet money that there was gang activity going on in this town, Charlie had said that there were problems with it in La Push, the Cullens were obviously involved, they were just a lot better at hiding it.

I wondered whether or not the parents were involved in it, in La Push it was just the teenage boys, but here there's an entire family involved. Dr. Cullen is an amazing doctor that's saved many, and from what I hear his wife is a very sweet stay at home mom, and all the Cullen kids had straight A's. Definitely not the kind of people who would get involved in gang activity, unless, of course, they were really good actors. If they're that good at hiding their true behaviour though, then we are definitely in a lot of trouble. If they know who the serial killer is then they'll lie through their teeth about who it is, and we'll never know whether or not they're lying.

For all that it seems like gang activity, it could be other things too- like two separate cults warring over who is right. That would be more fitting than gangs, after all, the way Bella and Emily were arguing clearly indicates an almost religious conviction that they were right about what they were saying. Also, since it never came to blows or threats of violence that also indicates that it is not a gang, which is by nature a very violent society. But the way Bella and Emily were talking indicated a shared set of truths that were set apart only by the fact that they were set on two different sides of the same view, not the kind of opposing views that enemy cults would have.

This entire thing was confusing, the way these people behaved was like nothing I had ever seen in my many years as a profiler, and it was driving me insane. These people acted in sets of things that were, when combined all together, an oxymoron, impossible opposites that somehow manage to be possible. I have never once seen a group of human beings act this way, they were an absolute exception to any of the rules that the human mind followed. They were enemies and friends, they were opposites and yet, they were exactly the same. No human ever acted in these ways.

I had to wonder if perhaps they weren't human, if what Bella and Emily were saying was actually the complete and utter truth, and that Forks was actually flowing over with mythical creatures. I laughed internally, this case must actually be driving me insane for me to contemplate even the possibility that mythical creatures really do exist. A traitorous part of my mind- the insane part- whispered to me how it would explain all the anomalies of the case, the inhuman strength used on the bodies of the victims, the way the bodies were drained dry of blood, the way there was absolutely no evidence other than the body on the scene.

We pulled up in front of a huge white house that, although it was stunningly beautiful, it was insanely intimidating in its perfection. There were just some things that are not meant to be this perfect, and this house was definitely one of them. We walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. After a few minutes with no one answering we rang once more. A blonde haired man opened the door of the house, he had the most peculiar golden eyes and my heart started pounding while all my instincts started screaming run. Sam seemed unaffected by the man's strange presence and his inhuman beauty, I followed his lead and just smiled and said the typical, "Hello, my name is Agent Nicolas and this is Agent Samuel and we work with the FBI. We're in town investigating the murders and we were just wondering if we could come inside and ask you a few questions."

The man nodded, still perfectly composed which made me surprised. Normally when the FBI come knocking on your door to ask you about murders you're surprised- unless, of course, the FBI have reason to come knocking on your door. The man started speaking and his voice was smooth and calm, "Of course you can. My name is Carlisle, is there anything in particular you want to ask?"

Are you and your family a group of bloodsucking monsters who are about to kill Bella Swan and start a war with the pack of wolves next door? Nah, somehow I doubt that he'd respond all that well to having us ask him those questions, and if he did respond well, then I'd be a lot more worried about him and his family than I am right now.

Agent Sam nodded, "Just some things that have come to our concern. Is there anywhere we can go sit down and talk?"

Carlisle nodded, still appearing perfectly calm. "We can go to the living room. Some of the kids are playing cards there, but I can clear them out if you want to speak privately." Strange, I'd bet that there are millions of places where we could go to talk in this huge house, but instead he decides to take us straight to where the family is congregated.

Sam and I exchanged a look and I spoke first, "No, I think it will be better if we all talk together." I said, taking the lead. Sam was great in a lab, but he wasn't the best when it came to field work.

Carlisle just nodded again, why do I get the feeling that absolutely nothing that we say or do will be able to fluster this man? His calm seems to be completely and utterly unflappable- and an awful lot like a mask that could be used to hide his true nature. "Follow me." He gestured through the door and led us into a huge open house. The entire back wall was made of glass and a pale watery light filtered through all the windows. Making it seem bright and sunny even though it was still raining lightly outside.

Everything in the house was perfect, and when I saw the 'children' who were playing cards I noticed that- with the exception of Bella Swan, who seemed to be the only normal one in the room- they all had that strange, scary perfection too. Everything was so nice, so beautiful... so fake. These people are hiding from the outside world and this house is there safe haven, they cannot be happy about how we just barged in here. I felt my hand itching towards my gun and stopped it from moving. All my instincts told me to be on edge here, that this family of seemingly perfect people was a lot scarier than expected.

Carlisle introduced us to everyone, "Jasper," he said, gesturing to an tall man with long blonde hair and the same bright golden eyes as the rest of his family, "Edward," he said gesturing to a boy who had Bella sitting in his lap as they shared a hand of cards. Both of them were obviously more comfortable in this house than in Bella's, I doubted that either of them sits like that with Chief Swan around. It also shows that Bella isn't the least bit afraid of Edward, and that whatever Emily's fears of Bella being forced to do stuff were derived from, they were very clearly unfounded, "You already know Bella," strange how he introduces Bella as one of his own family, as opposed to 'Edward's girlfriend Bella,' which is what most parents would say, "and Alice." He finished, gesturing at a small black haired women who was staring at us with knowing gold eyes. All in all, these people were acting like a normal family while very clearly being not a normal family.

I would bet that the card game, their behaviour, everything was staged to make them look as normal as possible and that that was why they took so long to answer their door, even after we rang the doorbell a second time. We sat down on the couch in front of the family, even though my instincts were very loudly telling me that I should definitely not be sitting down right now. I noticed how they minute we sat down on the couch they all subtly shifted themselves so that they were all sitting facing us, and how Bella was sitting protected in the center of the group, sitting behind Edward and Alice on the couch. I wondered if they were protecting her from us, or hiding her from us.

"So," I began, trying to seem calm and not the least bit intimidated, I figured that I would start with the most basic questions and move myself up to the bigger ones, "I hear that you all like to go hiking a lot, have any of you ever seen anything suspicious, or felt nervous about anything?"

Edward spoke first, "Not until about a week ago when we found out that the murders were happening. When we found out that there was a serial killer on the loose in the woods around us we got kind of jumpy. We've only gone hiking once in the woods around here since then, we drive out to Goat Rocks now, hiking around here just isn't worth the stress."

"Even though there are bad problems with wolves and bears there?"

"Better wolves and bears than a serial killer. Animals don't attack humans if you come properly prepared, but a human serial killer... who knows what he'll do?" Edward answered again, shuddering slightly at the end of speaking, even though from the way he was acting he wasn't the least bit afraid. These people are damn good actors... but Bella isn't. I'll have to see if I can talk to her alone, away from these Cullens.

"Do you ever feel worried living here in the middle of nowhere, as much as I hate to say it, I'd like to point out that you're living in a glass house." I gestured at the glass wall behind them, it face a nice garden behind their house, and behind that garden the woods that held a serial killer.

Edward shrugged, "A little bit- okay, maybe more than a little bit- but what can we do? This is our house, and none of us want to go live in a hotel or move just because of a killer in the woods. He only attacks women on their own, and while we're cautious enough to go hiking somewhere else, we're not cautious enough to go live somewhere else." Looks like I was right before- these people are very attached to their house; it really is the one place they don't have to hide. I wondered why only Edward was speaking, not Carlisle, after all, Carlisle was their father figure, shouldn't he be doing the talking?

"Do any of you have any idea who the killer could be?"

They all looked at each other, which was a fairly normal response for a group of people in these situations. This time the girl- Alice- spoke for the family, "No, not really, no one here in Forks really strikes me as a serial killer. Maybe in La Push, I don't know very many people down there, seeing as the natives told us if we went down there they'd... what was that threat again, Edward?"

"Rip us apart and burn the pieces?" Edward suggested, smirking.

Alice nodded, "Oh, yeah... They actually think we're vampires! How crazy can they get, eh?" she laughed, it was a very pretty bell like laugh, and for a few seconds I believed her- how could I be so silly as to imagine that such a small girl could be a bloodsucking monster. It was almost comical how silly people could be sometimes, "We actually started a video game with some of the more modern people down there, we all pretend to be vampires and werewolves." She continued still laughing, and I nodded. "We had to add some extra thing in there to make it more interesting, but all and all, I think we all did a good job."

That would explain everything, how these two groups could be both opposites and exactly the same, they're just role-playing. It would also explain the conversation Bella had with Emily, and why the Cullens were so defensive and secluded. I think I'd act like them too if I had half the population around me thinking I was a bloodsucking vampire. I nodded at Agent Nicolas, indicating that if he had something to say he should say it now. He looked at the Cullens, his eyes narrowed, "Chief Swan told me that you were all adopted, can I get the real family ties between all of you." I winced, expecting the close knit family in front of me to blow up when Nick said that they weren't a real family.

Instead of blowing up, the Cullens all just shared a knowing look before turning back to me. Jasper spoke first, and his voice was warm, projecting calm around the room. I frowned, wondering how he could possibly be so charismatic. "Rosalie and I are twins; Emmett, Alice and Edward are all siblings."

Agent Nicolas' eyes narrowed further and he nodded, "Thank you. I just needed to clear that one up. Looking at Carlisle he said, "Thanks for your time. You have a very nice family here, if you don't mind we have to leave right now."

Carlisle nodded, "Of course. I'll show you the door."

We followed him out the door, and as soon as we left the living room the strange need to flee entered my limbs again. Nick and I bid Carlisle farewell and climbed into the hummer. As soon as we were safely shrouded by the trees he said, "Not one single one of those Cullens are brothers and sisters, they all have completely different bone structures."

I sighed, there goes my psychological theory. "Great, just great. You just blew my theory right out the window. Up until you said that I thought that the Cullens were just a normal family that were so secluded because the natives believed them to be vampires, and that their conflicting behaviour was caused by the fact that they were living two lives- their real ones, and their role playing ones."

Sam smirked, "Psychology has always been a washy subject, especially compared to cold hard facts." Sam thinks my psychological approach is a bunch of nonsense, he puts up with it occasionally, but for the most part he just tries to find his 'cold hard facts'. "So what's your theory on the mysterious Cullens now, I'll have to say, in all my years of working I've seen some pretty strange things, but vampires and werewolves have to be right at the top of my list."

"They're hiding something big. Something very, very big. And there are so many conflicting views that I can't even begin to decipher the messages that are being given."

"Shall we go over the facts?" here he goes with his cold hard facts again.

"We did that just this morning." I whined, wishing that for once we'd be able to just write it down on a piece of paper instead of going over it every single hour.

He got a serene look on his face and I sighed mentally while he launched into his favourite lecture, "Facts are important, without information and facts our society would be unstable, our leaders hypocritical and our families destroyed. This entire world exists from facts, everything happens for a reason and when we find out those reasons we are closer to finding out why things happen the way they do... or who a murderous serial killer is." I relaxed slightly, that one hadn't gone on too long; sometimes he can ramble on for hours.

I gave in, shrugging and realizing that he would be a happier person for the three-hour drive back to Seattle if I just wasted five minutes of my time for him. "Fine."

He grinned like schoolboy who had just gotten an ice-cream cone. "Awesome. Fact one-Bella and Emily may have been talking about a role-playing game played between the Cullens and the Quileutes."

"Accepted." If I had been the one giving the facts and him accepting, the he would have made me be a lot more specific about what they were talking about, but for now I was perfectly content to just nod and agree unless I heard something totally wrong.

Nick continued happily, "Fact two- the Cullens are lying about the role playing game, because if they aren't then there's no point in us continuing this conversation." Now I think he's just trying to drag it on in order to make a point, I would have just accepted the first fact and left it at that.

"Accepted." I sighed.

"Fact three- the Cullens are lying about their family ties, which indicates something suspicious."

"Denied- the Cullens are lying about their family ties, which could be suspicious, or just an attempt to fit in more in the community."

"Accepted." He kept going, looks like the energizer bunny has some competition. "Fact four- the Cullens are intending to steal Bella from Charlie."

"Accepted."

"Fact five- because of fact four, the Quileutes are offering to start a full-out war with the Cullen family."

"Accepted."

"Fact six- the Cullens are believed to be vampires, and the Quileutes to be wolves."

"Accepted."

"Fact Seven- the Cullens and the wolves are teaming up to hunt something, even though they have an open feud going on."

"Denied- the feud hasn't happened yet, it'll happen the minute Bella and Edward say 'I do', which is when the Quileutes believe Edward will change Bella into a vampire."

"Accepted." This case was creating some of the longest fact lists that I have ever seen. "Fact eight- Charlie and all the residents of Forks remain completely clueless to the activities in their town."

"Accepted."

"Fact nine- there appears to be some kind of treaty between the Cullens and the Quileutes, which stops them from entering each other's land, which is why Bella and Emily act as the go-betweens."

"Accepted." I had forgotten about what Alice had said, which is why I guess these conversations are important.

"Fact ten- there is still unknown group known as the Volturi, who we've been unable to find anymore about, and we probably should since they've been driving a lot of the activity here."

"Accepted." I paused momentarily and before he had a chance to get going I said, "Have we tried just Googling the name yet?"

"No, not yet- do you want to when we get back to the hotel?" I mentally let out a sigh of relief, looks like he's stopped spouting off random facts because I've given him a chance to find some new ones.

"Sure." I agreed, half curious, "I can't help but wonder what we'll find. An Italian vampire mafia, perhaps?"

He snorted, "Yeah, _sure _we will." His voice was laced with sarcasm and we laughed the entire way home.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Honestly, the insane idea for the first part of this chapter just kind of popped into my head. I was going to do it Bella's POV, but then I typed in 'the Dark Side' and the idea just came flying out. If you like it, leave a review, apart from that though, enjoy.**

**Chapter Eight- The Dark Side**

**Serial Killer's POV**

I let out the last of my air and pulled myself up to the top of the water, not needing the new air, but wanting it badly. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the forest around me. There were the usual things, the scent of earth and the scent of forest animals. Then there was also the scent of those freakish Quileute werewolves, and those disgusting human loving Cullens- they think I don't know they're really hunting me, not those disgusting forest creatures, but I know the truth.

I know the truth about everything.

I know I am right- after all, the way those stupid human lovers act, like they think humans are all innocent and worthy of respect. They think that they are working for the better good by stopping my hunt and saving all those hideous humans. Little do they know though, every single human has the potential to be a monster, to be like one of us, which is why I need to get rid of most of them until I am strong enough to take on the source of the problem- my creator herself, who is still wandering around south of here creating more and more monsters, more and more abominations.

She disgusts me. They all disgust me.

I know that attempting to kill all humans would be suicide, after all, there are those who take exposing our race as a very serious crime- little do they know that they have already committed the biggest crime in elevating humans to our race, even mere human children! How stupid, how naive can they be to believe that that mission could possibly end well? So instead I hide my ways so that I can keep killing, keep protecting the earth from the dirtiness of our kind by using a knife- a mere human weapon that no vampire other than myself would ever lower themselves to use. The irony of killing humans with a human weapon seems poetic to me, beautiful even. My plan can never fail when I use such caution, those Cullens think I am insane, but how can I possibly be insane when I think things through so clearly?

No, I am as sane as I need to be.

Plus, if you need even more proof of my sanity, look at how I prioritize- I kill only the humans that are most like my wanton creator, that have the most potential to become true horrors. Never should anyone like her have been changed into a vampire, it is my duty, my mission to ensure that no one shall ever suffer like I did. The lives of the few that I have killed are worth much less than those lives which would have been taken by them. My reasoning is sound, no one person is worth more than the survival of one race.

My reasoning is sound, and I am right about everything.

**Agent Nicolas' POV**

I frowned and walked into Chief Swan's office at the police station, he was busy dealing with a few drunks in the jail section of the station and Sam was examining another body that had turned up last night, it was a fresh kill, still warm when the police got there. The only difference from the old crime scenes was that there was a trail of fresh water leading to the nearest river- the serial killer must be using a boat to get around, there's no other logical explanation.

Listen to me 'no other logical explanation' I'm starting to sound like Sam. After all, I chuckled to myself; the killer might be a vampire, or a mysterious and dangerous Volturi cult member. Assuming that it's a cult, it might just be some poor misunderstood Italian- I'm assuming Italian since Volturi seems like an Italian name- family that moved here from Italy. Maybe even Volterra, Italy. I went there once for a St. Marcus' festival and found it to be quite an enjoyable place. They were even offering free tours of the castle, I still wish to this day that I had accepted going on that tour, but I had been so busy looking around the town that I had decided to forgo the experience.

But anyways, back to the present. I was in this quiet office so that I could make profiles of all the Cullens, plus Bella and Emily. We were trying not to let Charlie in on the fact that we were poking around the town, most small town cops tend to become offended when you start doing more than your supposed to, especially when you're investigating said town cop's personal life. I really doubt Charlie would be all that impressed if he found me trying to put the puzzle of his daughter's vampiric relationship together, especially when he made it clear how much he hated said vampire boyfriend.

All I can say right now is how sorry I feel for poor Charlie, there are some things that most normal people can't even begin to comprehend, and he's stuck right in the middle of it.

I turned back to the profiles; profiles are normally used to figure out who someone is, like a serial killer, or an anonymous bank robber- people who you don't know and want to catch. They're not normally used for people who you already know, most people don't believe that it's worth their time and effort to create a profile for someone they already know. The only reason I'm creating one for the Cullens and Bella and Emily is because I _don't _know who they are, I know who they want me to think they are, but not who they actually are. I'm hoping that the profiles will allow me to get their strange personalities straight in my head.

And their personalities are definitely strange. I picked up a pen and started on the first one. I had learned a lot about Bella Swab from her father, and many of the things he said contradicted with things I saw at the Cullen household.

**Name: Bella Swan**

**Occupation: Student/Store Clerk at 'Newton's Outfitters'**

**Appearance: 5'8" tall, slim build and relatively clumsy. Has dark brown eyes and long brown hair. Skin colour is pale white. Attractive, but plain.**

**Personality: Shy, but strong minded and stubborn, especially around those she knows. Horrible liar, so she speaks in half-truths instead. Is insanely devoted to family and puts everyone before herself, much to the point where she could almost be considered masochistic in nature. Treats everything around her as stronger than herself, indicating she has low self esteem. Has no perception of danger. Is completely and totally able to devote herself to one thing, in this case the Cullens.**

**Other: Is involved in possible gang activity between Quileutes and Cullens, and acts as a go-between for the two groups. Is about to become married to Edward Cullen, despite the fact that that will ruin her relationship with the Quileutes. Hides the fact that she is going to be married from her father. Is being constantly protected and hidden by the Cullens, who her father reports have been taking her on trips without telling him. Considers the Cullens- specifically Edward- to be more important to her than anything or anyone else on the planet.**

Actually, that is definitely not a healthy relationship. From what I've seen, the Cullens do look after Bella, but what if they decide to stop? She'd be totally alone in the world, Charlie said Edward left her once and she was totally destroyed. He admitted that Edward had looked even worse when they returned to his house after Bella went on one of her mystery trips with them, but still, what if Edward does manage to get past that and leave Bella again, especially after they've committed themselves to each other? Bella would probably jump off a cliff again, and probably not for 'recreational purposes' this time.

Now, onto the next subject...

**Name: Emily...**

I continued doing the profiles on the Cullens and their associates the entire day, and I managed to make note of one big thing that seemed out of place, all of the Cullens were far too perfect. I know I've said it before, and I know that may not seem like such a big problem, but when you actually write it down on paper it gets ten times creepier. There's a difference between seeing people acting creepy, and then compiling enough thorough evidence on the people to discover that they really are creeps.

Hmm... I'm starting to repeat myself. That's never a good sign, it means that I'm not getting enough sleep. That's not really all that surprising considering how absolutely exhausting this case is becoming, you get one answer and ten more pop up because of it, causing ten more problems that you'll have to solve. It's just one giant mess, and we're the ones trying to fix it up. And we're failing miserably.

I wondered what would happen if I did some research for the Cullens, surely the people didn't go unnoticed in the last town they lived in, maybe that's why they all moved here, so close to the suspicious Quileutes in the first place.

I turned to the computer and typed in 'Carlisle Cullen' into the search box, setting it to open most recently added. I figured that that would be the quickest way to filter through the information. The first few articles were just clippings from the Forks newspaper that rang along the lives of "_Carlisle Cullen, brilliant young doctor at age 23, saves yet another person'. _I continued down the page and hit a few more from Denali, Alaska. All were- once again- basically the same article. And all of them said the same thing "_Carlisle Cullen, brilliant young doctor at age 23, saves yet another person'. _I inhaled a deep breath, the oldest of the Alaska ones was from five years ago- where Carlisle Cullen should have been seventeen, but instead was listed as twenty-three. Again. I continued back farther, ten years ago in England, twenty years ago in Chicago, thirty in Seattle, forty in Alaska again, sixty in England, eighty in Forks where there was only a population of fifty people, and finally one hundred years ago in Chicago again.

The article for Chicago wasn't the same as all the other articles though, it was an obituary for a seventeen year old boy known as Edward Mason. I looked at the picture beside it and gasped slightly- Edward Mason, currently known in the twentieth century as Edward Cullen, son of Carlisle Cullen.

Holy shit.

Edward was over a hundred years old, and Carlisle older, so old that his birth and death and human exploits were never even recorded.

What the hell had we gotten ourselves into? We were actually attempting to rat out a family of a hundred year-old vampires. What on earth are we thinking? I pulled out a notepad and continued my research; I tracked Esme down through Carlisle's medical records, and Emmett and Jasper through the last names they used in high school. The Cullens never changed their first names, and they shared their last names, so it was fairly easy to track them all down. In the end the only Cullens I was unable to find any information on were Alice and Esme, the rest though... let's just say they're all over sixty years old and leave it be after that. I printed off all the articles I could find on the Cullens- all of them happily commenting on how absolutely _perfect _the Cullens were- and stuck them into the ever thickening folder that was starting to fall apart on me. We're going to need a filing cabinet just for this one family.

I leaned back into the chair for a few minutes- more like an hour, actually- while my mind ran in circles screaming 'vampires are real' over and over again. There are some things that you mind just has a really hard time trying to comprehend, and this was definitely one of those times. My breathing was ragged and I felt as if someone was beating a tune on the inside of my scull.

God, I need some coffee. And a raise... actually, screw that, I need to retire.

I continued on with my work for lack of anything better to do, what I really needed to do was distract myself, but since we all know that that's never going to happen... let's just say I'll settle for second best and actually try to find a solution for the problem.

Not that I think that's going to happen, since obviously these people have been around so long that nothing I will ever do will ever change the way I act.

My mind jumped straight to another horrible fact- what do the Cullens eat? Or rather, who do they eat? All those bear attacks, all of those murders in Seattle- was that the Cullens? Oh dear god... are they the serial killers? Bella and Emily spoke about hunting in their conversation. We're they talking about hunting women? About hunting innocent humans?

I stood up, whether these people were a thousand years old or just a hundred, a gun would have to do some damage on them... right? Maybe I could carve some stakes and find some holy water and crosses. There has to be something that can hurt the Cullens...

Maybe I should try talking to them first...

No. That's impossible. These people are murdering, bloodsucking, inhuman monsters that mask themselves with perfection. I would have to go for them with guns blazing. I should go for their weak spot... Bella Swan is still human, maybe if I can get her alone then the Cullens will listen to my demands on them to spare human life, after all, Bella seemed to matter immensely to them for some reason. Was she really Edward's lover, or was she actually a kind of pet of theirs? God... this is getting far to twisted for me to deal with. I need to go grab Sam, and then I think we need to go for a walk to talk about what we're going to do about this.

He's never going to believe this.

I ran into the room where Sam was performing the autopsy on the body, only to find him not there. I ran into the next room over and found him testing some DNA on a couple of cotton swabs he had. "What are you doing?" I asked, curiously, wondering why he was in here testing DNA when we already knew the identity of the victim- her name was Allison Saunders, a visiting hiker.

"I think I managed to get some of the killer's DNA from around the knife marks, but the machine must have a glitch in it. It's saying that the DNA isn't even human. Funky, huh?" Sam was smiling happily; there was nothing he loved more than a good mystery.

I choked, and Sam turned to me, expecting to hear a response. His eyes narrowed with concern, "Are you feeling okay? I know this case is hard Nick, if you need a day off I'll happily drive you back to Seattle for a day off, this machine is driving me crazy after all."

He started heading for the door and I managed to find words to speak with, "It's not the machine."

Sam turned back to me, "Say again?"

"It's not the machine. It's the DNA itself. Grab all your stuff and let's get back to the hotel. I need to talk to you in private; you will never believe what I've found."

"I can just leave the sample here and give the machine some more time to process it." He objected, "I might be able to get a clearer reading."

I shook my head, "No. You won't. Believe me, Sam, please? Just this once?"

He got my desperate look and sprang into action; normally I acted like this when I just met who I believed to be the killer in whatever case we were working on.

"Don't leave a single thing behind." I added, I didn't want to risk Charlie stumbling upon everything. Sam nodded and grabbed all the samples and even downloaded all the computer information onto his memory key and deleted all the stuff on the computer. Obviously he got the need for secrecy pretty well, that or I was acting so insane that he didn't want me to get one look at his computer for fear of sending me further off the deep end.

"Let's go." He nodded at me, and we rushed for the hummer. He threw himself into the driver seat and I climbed in carefully behind him, not wanting to risk accidently dropping the over-filled file of information on the Cullens.

Sam gave me a few seconds to compose myself and I tried to relax, eventually curiosity got the better of him and he asked, "What the hell did you find Sam- you look worse than you did when we found out the killer in the King's Town case was a six year old girl, and you passed out then.

"This is worse."

"Worse than a six-year old girl with pigtails and a bubblegum voice that lured female adults to their death because her mother was abusing her? I don't see how this can possibly be worse than that."

"Oh it most certainly is..." I trailed off before launching into my explanation of what I had found, and by the time I was done Sam agreed with me- this was a lot worse than that. We weren't dealing with one single killer.

We were dealing with a race of them.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Alright, so that last Chapter was the Chapter I intended to post last week. This is the one for this week, I'm sorry to everyone for making you wait for two weeks. For those of you who actually sent me an e-mail telling me I accidently posted Chapter Seven twice, thanks. I probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise, and that would have been bad.**

**Chapter Nine- London Bridge is Falling Down**

**Bella POV**

I frowned and flipped through the book of sample colours that Alice was asking me to look at, the exact words had been 'find one you like'. When I had asked her what they were for, she just shot me a look and said, 'just find one Bella'. That look had been the equivalent of a human death glare, so I decided to just do what she told me before I got a vampire death glare- vampires tend to kill people after giving them those glares, and I don't want to die. Yet. After Edward and I have had sex I'll go happily, but until then... kill me and I'll haunt you for all eternity.

I was halfway between deciding between a light blue, and a brighter more vibrant blue when Alice stormed into the living room. The look on her face was a cross between worry and irritation, I hurriedly pushed the wedding book towards her, "I'm sorry, here, you can choose for me Alice, I didn't know I would have such bad taste."

Alice sent me a quick apologetic look, "Actually, your choices are quite nice Bella. I'm sorry if I looked like I was mad at you- I just had a vision of the agents figuring out what we were. They're in their hotel room, arguing about what to do as we speak. They think that we're the serial killers."

"Oh..." I trailed off, "Well, this could get ugly." I racked my mind to try and figure out how to deter the Agents, how to get them to see that the Cullens were not a family of serial killing, bloodsucking mobster vampires. I was kind of coming up short.

Luckily for me, in a house full of vampires there is a rarely a time where none can manage to think up a brilliant solution. And in this case, Jasper got to take the spotlight. "What if we got Bella to call them, Alice, you've seen the profile they gave her, they think that she really gives anything for her family. If she thought Charlie was at risk because they have the wrong group of people as killers, then she'd call them and tell them the truth. Since they don't know about our gifts, they don't know that we know we're the prime suspects."

"So... you want me to call them and tell them the truth so that they don't put Charlie at risk. It's a good idea, Jasper, but Charlie is neither a female or blessed with an overabundance of long brown hair. Why would the killer hurt him?"

Jasper looked at me, a slight twinkle in his eyes, "You're the human expert on vampires, Bella. You know how _territorial _newborns can get, and those agents have Charlie in the woods _all the time."_

"Oh... Oh! I get it!" I cheered, "Alice what's their phone number?"

"How should I know?" she asked innocently.

"Let's see... you're a psychic, eighty-something year old vampire... shall I continue? Or can you just hand me the phone number.

She laughed merrily and told me the number that belonged to the agents. I wrote it on my hand and went over to the Cullen household phone, Alice caught my hand right before I dialled and said, "Use your cell phone- it might look a little odd if you're calling the FBI agents to rat out our great vampire hunting serial killer scheme using the household phone. And remember, you don't know that they know what we are. It would be even better if you could get them to meet them at your house in person, that would make it seem to them that you're putting a great deal of seriousness on the whole thing."

I nodded, remembering it all, "Anything else?"

"Don't say a single word on the topic of the Volturi. They really don't need to know that. Apart from that little part though, good luck sister." I frowned, Alice had never called me sister before she had said 'I love you like a sister', or 'you're just like a little sister to me', but she's never called me sister before. I kind of like it, it makes me feel like real family to them. I bet she did it on purpose to make me feel that, I can't imagine why though. Ah well, it's really unimportant.

"Thanks, Alice. I'll go to my house to call them, just in case they decide to trace the location of the call."

Alice laughed, "They can't do that with a cell phone, Bella."

"Oops." I blushed; this was awkward and more than slightly embarrassing. "So this is me calling them then." I said quickly, wanting to do something to distract them. The Cullens all saw right through it and chuckled slightly. I dialled the number into my phone, it rang for a few seconds before I heard someone pick up.

"Agent Samuel speaking." He said, his voice coming out clear and crisp, but there was a trace of desperation behind it, like he was insanely worried and trying to hide it.

"Agent Samuel? This is Bella Swan," I made my voice soft and shy, as if I were nervous about what I were doing.

"Bella? How can I help you?" he was suspicious, I would be too if I were him.

"I... I need to tell you something about the Cullens, and about the serial killer. I should really tell you in person... would you mind meeting me at my house? I don't think Charlie is home right now..." I trailed off uncertainly.

"Of course, Bella. It'll be just me coming, though. Agent Nick is feeling a little under the weather right now."

"Whatever you want to do." I said readily, "Please hurry though- I don't know how much time we have before Charlie gets home."

"I'll be right over, we're staying in Seattle, so I'll be a few hours."

I looked at the clock, it was noon right now and Charlie would be home at about six, I had plenty of time. "That would be fine."

"Okay, just relax and hang in their Bella. I'll be right there." He hung up and I burst out laughing, all the Cullens looked at me appreciatively.

"We're rubbing off on you," Carlisle joked, "we must be horrible influences to get you to lie so well, and to a federal agent no less!"

Emmett went next, "Who knew my baby sister could lie so well! That was perfectly delivered in pitch and wording, the man fell for it hook line and sinker!"

"Can I keep it up when I talk to him in person though?" I mused and Alice laughed.

"Oh, you will." She reassured me happily, still snickering away.

"Alice," I said, a scary though coming to my head, "What do I do if he asks me about the Volturi directly?"

"Tell him the truth, but leave out any gory details about their eating habits."

"And if he asks me about them specifically?"

"Tell him the truth. I hope it doesn't come to that though, if it does, start drilling into his head how powerful they are. That normally gets anyone to listen to you." She directed and I sealed it into my memory.

"Yeah, it's not every day that I get to threaten federal agents with a three-thousand year old, man eating coven of murderous vampires that pretty much rule the entire world." I said sarcastically, and then I re-thought that one, "That being said, I seem to be doing it more than most people should."

Alice laughed, "Yes, because normal people do it _so _often. The good news is that while you're talking to the agents, the wolves and us will be hunting the serial killer. Hopefully by the time you finish talking to the agents the bastard will be dead."

"Hopefully." I agreed, "I' going to head over to my house then, okay?"

Alice nodded, "We'll call you when we get back in. Don't leave your house until then, especially if you're planning on driving down any deserted roads."

"I'll be fine, Alice." I reassured her.

She looked at me, her eyes worried. "Okay, Bella. Good luck on your part."

"Same to you."

I kissed Edward one last time before heading towards the door.

**Agent Samuel POV**

I leaned back on the bed in my hotel room, rubbing my face worriedly. Nick was collapsed on the bed on the other side of the room, trying to sleep off some of his stress. He was freaking out over what we had found. I should have been the one to find that information on the internet, not him. He didn't have the right mindset to deal with all this, he took it way too seriously.

Nick was an amazing psychologist and profiler; he could read things in people that I could barely understand. He absolutely rules the world of the human mind, where everything is so wishy-washy that I can barely function there. That being said though, he has trouble letting go of things; he reads people so well that their problems automatically become his problems. He'll work himself to the bone to try and solve those problems for them, and he bears down way too hard on himself. I don't think he actually has the physical ability to actually see when it's a logical time to stop, to just acknowledge that it's time to let go. I have had to physically drag him away from victims if a case goes sour on us.

To be unable to help the people of Forks because this case is too big for us to handle must be killing him. I'd call it off now and make him leave if it weren't for the fact that we still don't have enough physical evidence to back up whatever is going on in this bizarre town, and for all we know the Cullens might just be playing some kind of giant prank on us. After all, how hard is it to make up fake newspaper articles and say they're from the fifties? The DNA readings were intriguing, but one strand of mutant DNA isn't enough to back up the existence of a race of supernatural creatures.

This entire case was just getting to be so much fun!

I flicked the channel on the T.V. and my phone started ringing. I picked it up, "Agent Samuel speaking." I said, wondering who could be calling. I was kind of hoping that it wasn't our boss, we were supposed to have sent a report to him yesterday, but neither of us has sent one. There are just too many blanks that need to be filled in before we tell him anything. That being said, our boss was head of the FBI and _man _could he ever be intimidating when he wanted to.

"Agent Samuel? This is Bella Swan..." she trailed off, her voice was uncertain and more than slightly terrified. I wonder if she's realized that the Cullens are killers and wants to get us to help her. Having Bella on our side could make our lives a _lot _easier.

That being said though, I was slightly suspicious about why she would be calling. "Bella? How can I help you?" I tried to hide the suspicion in my voice, Bella really did sound terrified. Agent Nicolas had said that she was insanely protective of her family (a.k.a. the Cullens, not so much Charlie) and she would do nothing that would ever cause them even an ounce of pain. But if she had found out that they weren't human loving vampires that she thought they were, wouldn't her feelings of hurt and betrayal be enough to make _her _betray _them_? It was an interesting thought, according to Charlie, Edward has already betrayed her once and she kept it all bottled up. If he betrayed her a second time then all that pent up emotion might just be enough to make her snap.

"I... I need to tell you something about the Cullens, and about the serial killer. I should really tell you in person... would you mind meeting me at my house? I don't think Charlie is home right now..." Why would she want Charlie not to be in his own house? Then again, if she's planning on telling me about the Cullens' dirty little secret, then she might not want Charlie getting involved. She probably didn't want to tell me on the phone for fear that we were recording the conversation. Why they were all so worried about keeping 'the secret' was a mystery to me. Could those 'Volturis' really be so bad. I wonder what kind of monster a Volturi is, it must quite powerful to scare them all this much.

"Of course, Bella. It'll be just me coming, though. Agent Nick is feeling a little under the weather right now." Maybe I shouldn't have told her that last part...

"Whatever you want to do." she said readily, "Please hurry though- I don't know how much time we have before Charlie gets home." Here she goes with the wanting to avoid any risk of people seeing her, the poor girl must be truly distraught right now to want to hide so badly. Or maybe she was just afraid that the serial killing Cullens would try to kill her.

"I'll be right over, we're staying in Seattle, so I'll be a few hours." I warned her, not wanting her to freak out when I didn't arrive on her doorstep within the next three hours.

"Whatever you want to do." She said readily, practically tripping over herself with relief, "Please hurry though- I don't know how much time we have before Charlie gets home."

"Okay, just relax and hang in their Bella. I'll be right there." I said, trying to calm her down so that she wouldn't freak out. I hung up my phone and stuck it back into my pocket. Turning off the T.V. I got up and got myself ready.

Nick opened his eyes sleepily, "And where the hell are you going?" he asked. Nick has problems when it comes to me and field work. He thinks that I can't relate at all to normal human beings, and therefore cannot tell whether or not they're lying. I definitely didn't think Bella Swan was lying, she sounded far too scared for that.

"Bella Swan just called me; she wants to tell us something about the case. She sounded absolutely terrified." I explained, hoping this would be enough for him.

He climbed out of bed and started getting ready too, I was worried about him, he still didn't look very good. However much I wanted him to stay at the hotel, I knew that wasn't a possibility. The more I tried to get him to get some sleep, the more he would resist and try to work. "Did it ever occur to her that she might be scared because the Cullens revealed their true nature to her and then forced her to call you and set up a trap."

Oh.

That makes a lot of sense, maybe I do suck at telling whether or not someone's lying. "So then what do we do?" I asked, "We have no way of knowing whether or not Bella is lying to us. She might be trying to help us, in which case we _really _need her help. She might be trying to lure us into a trap for her vampire family, in which case we're totally screwed."

"We go. We have the advantage right now- as far as Bella Swan and the Cullens know, we are still ignorant FBI Agents and not the least bit threatening to them. We go in there treating it like a hostile situation, as if we thought Bella herself was the serial killer and she's armed, if the Cullens are there then we bolt and if they're not then we stay. Understood?" I nodded and grabbed my Kevlar vest and gun belt. We ran out towards the car and sped down the highway to Forks, Washington.

**Agent Nicolas POV**

Sam was driving the car, and I was staring out the window making plans. I love having Sam as my partner, I really do, but the poor guy has no sense of self preservation. When you believe a girl is working with a group of _vampires _(I shudder to think of what some of my colleagues would say if I told them vampires were real- it would probably involve my transfer to a mental ward) then you don't run off to save her just because she's afraid. Of all the people in Forks, Bella Swan should be the least afraid. She has the protection of not only the Cullens, but a pack of wolves as well.

The most likely possibility was that Bella Swan was leading us into a trap. But what if she wasn't? What could her motivation possibly be. Could she be planning on warning us to back out so that the Volturis- whatever the hell they are- don't come after us? I she afraid they'll attack her family because they've let not only herself, but two FBI agents know about the existence of vampires? Could she just be trying to protect herself? That didn't fit the profile I gave her, but even I can be wrong at times. Maybe she was just trying to protect Charlie from the Cullens...

I sighed, every answer we got in this case just lead to more questions.

We drove for three hours, traffic was horrible today, it was a Friday afternoon and all the city dwellers were heading to their cottages, or heading out for a camping trip. It occurred to me that if the Cullens weren't the serial killer(s) then the monster might be hiding himself as a tourist.

We pulled carefully into Bella's driveway, seeing not even a trace of the Cullens. Bella's old rusty truck was the only car in the driveway. We crept up to her door, trying to be as silent as humanly possible. We stopped outside the door. I debated whether or not to ring the doorbell, but eventually decided surprise was the best. We pulled our guns out and I held up three fingers, indicating to Sam when he should kick the door down. _Three...two...one..._

BANG!

"Holy cow!" Bella yelped, and frankly, I'd be kind of surprised too if I were her. It's not every day that you get two FBI agents kicking your door down. Then again, maybe it is every day for her. I have no idea what vampire lovers do in their free time.

Sam and I ran around the house, checking all the rooms. By the end of it, when I realized that Bella Swan was alone in her house I sighed. Sticking my gun back into the holster I walked back into the kitchen to talk to a slightly shell shocked looking Bella.

"Well I feel more than slightly childish now." I confided, "So what was it you wanted to tell us?"

Bella just let out a huge breath of air.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: And here we go. Things start to really pick up here, and I'm sure you'll all notice there are only a few more Chapters left. Read, and if you like it, review.**

**Chapter Ten- Shadows in the Dark**

**Alice POV**

We walked into the clearing with the wolves. Even though I was expecting the typical loss of sight I got around them, it didn't stop me from feeling very, very blind. Edward spoke for Sam again, since the wolves were all in wolf form to hunt the serial killer. It was more than slightly nerve racking to be outnumbered by our enemies, especially when they're hunting our kind. You keep looking over your shoulder, expecting them to jump you, and you're constantly on watch for any trickery from them. Even creepier, you know they're on watch for any trickery from you, which makes you feel like you're the one in the wrong instead of them. It's just plain unnerving, I know Bella thinks that maybe one day we'll all get along, but we're just not made for that. We're natural enemies.

He looked at Carlisle, "We are ready. We believe we should start about a half an hour to the east of Forks to cover all of the newborns territory." Edward's voice was the blank emotionless tone that indicated these weren't his words, but Sam's. It still felt odd to me that my brother could hook himself into the pack mind like that, be able to hear all their thoughts. I know it drives Sam insane too, if Edward has access to the pack mind then he'll know all their plans. And if Edward knows their plans, then by default we all know them too.

Carlisle nodded, "We are comfortable in that territory. We'll start in the rivers. I trust you can keep up with us, since running is faster than swimming." To the wolves Carlisle's expression would be calm, collected. To those of us who know him though, I could sense the challenge in his voice. Not even Carlisle was completely free of the enmity of out two races.

"Don't taunt me." Edward said. Sam shot him a look and Edward rolled his eyes and said, "I edited. What Sam actually said was 'the day we can't keep up to swimming leeches like you is the day we start digging our graves.'"

Emmett and Jasper rolled their eyes at each other, while Carlisle smiled thinly in amusement. "Let's get started with the insults _after _we've killed this bastard." He chided gently. Sam let out a low howl that needed no translation for us- it was time to hunt.

**Agent Nicolas POV**

Bella stared at me open mouthed for a few more seconds. She really didn't look good, she was paler than usual with huge circles under her eyes, with the exception of the gold eyes and intimidating presence she looked like one of the Cullens. "Let's go sit down in the living room." She said after a few seconds, still very clearly trying to compose her thoughts. I felt a tiny bit bad; we had very obviously startled the poor girl. Then again, it was for very good reason, so I wasn't feeling _too _sorry.

We all went and sat in Chief Swan's living room, neither me nor Sam made any sudden movements, Bella was obviously terrified as it was. When we were all sitting down Bella rubbed the back of her head, suddenly seeming self conscious. "I have no idea how to say this without sounding completely and utterly insane." She began.

"Just say it, Bella." I said softly. I had forgotten that the Cullens- and therefore Bella- had no idea that we knew anything. "It can't be that bad, can it?"

"You say that now." She laughed nervously, "Okay, here we go... the serial killer is a vampire."

"Oh we know." I said calmly, wanting to see her reaction and deciding to go on the offensive. Her face registered complete and total shock. Either Bella was a far better actor than we believed, or the Cullens actually had no idea. I'm betting on the second option, because short of them being able to read minds, there is no way the Cullens could have known that we knew.

"You... You... You knew?" she said, her voice caught between a screech and a whisper. "Oh boy... that's bad... How on earth did you figure it out? Please tell me we're not being obvious..." She was absolutely terrified.

I frowned, and then said soothingly, "Why would that be bad Bella? It's not like we plan on telling anyone."

"Then it doesn't matter. As long as you don't tell anyone it doesn't matter." She seemed to be reassuring herself, not reassuring us. I sighed, I had been hoping to have her go into a rage because I said it didn't matter. Obviously Bella was either more terrified, or just smarter than I thought.

"It's because of the Volturis, isn't it Bella."

A look of pure, absolute horror crossed her face, but there was a trace of something else too, something I just couldn't put my finger on. We had obviously hit a very big nerve. "How do you know about them?" she breathed. "What do you know?"

I leaned forwards, putting my elbows on my knees. "We know that the Cullens- your family- are vampires. We know that the Quileutes are shape shifters that turn into wolves. We know all about how old your family is, about how old your fiancée is. We know that you're all dead terrified of these Volturis- whatever they are. And if you tell us what they are, then we can protect you from them. Tell us who they are Bella, for the safety of the Cullens, for Charlie, for Edward."

Bella let out a high pitched hysterical laugh, "Protect me from the Volturi? You think you can protect me from the Volturi! Allow me to explain, the Volturi- and the word without the's' is plural- all of them and their guard are unstoppable. They're the leaders of the vampire world, they're over three thousand years old and they have never, ever lost a fight. No vampire can stand against them, let alone a weak human." Bella had said '_a weak human' _which shows me that she considers vampires to be superior to humans, and that she probably resents being the weak link in a strong coven, and therefore she wants to be a vampire as well. She practically worships them probably. Second, we've been pronouncing the word 'Volturi' wrong, which shows her that we know next to nothing about the leaders of the vampire world, that we've done no research on them. We slipped up there.

"Why do you say 'a weak human' Bella? How do you kill a vampire?"

Bella continued, "They are not vampires as you know them." She realized that she had the upper hand when it came to this, that we were like babies compared to her in this area, "They are like the classic Hollywood vampires only because they drink blood, apart from that, there is absolutely no resemblance. They are so strong and hard fighting against them is like fighting against a rock. When they run they are so fast all you can see is a blur. They have no fangs, and they're venomous."

"How do you kill one?" I prodded, I _needed _to know this.

She looked me dead in the eye. "You don't." Taking a deep breath, she continued, "The only way to kill a vampire is to rip them apart and burn the pieces. And that is an impossible feat for a human to perform." She paused for a moment to let this sink in for me. How were we going to capture the serial killer then? Especially if the serial killer is one of the Cullens, a group of eight vampires, not just one random killer.

"Bella." I asked, getting back to business, "Who is the serial killer? It's one of the Cullens, isn't it? Which one..." I figured that going on the offensive again would be a good idea, I seemed to get a lot of information out of her when I did that. I was about to start listing off names when Bella responded.

"You think one of the Cullens is the killer!" she screeched, outraged. She was almost kitten-like in her anger, there was absolutely nothing she could do against us, and yet she still jumped in to protect her vampire family. "You idiot- it's a newborn, not one of the Cullens. Do any of the Cullens have red eyes right now? No. They don't. That means that none of them are drinking human blood- and that means none of them are murdering young girls. Idiot!" she yelled again.

"Okay," I winced, maybe I had gone to fast, "How do you know they're not lying to you about everything. And when I say everything, I mean _everything._ All of the facts you know about the Cullens might be false- what happens then, Bella?_"_

Bella gave me a look, and then rolled her eyes. "The list of evidence I have goes on and on and on and on... trust me, everything the Cullens have said to me I've checked and double checked. They're not lying about anything. There's too many people involved, too much evidence."

_Too many people involved, too much evidence._ We weren't dealing with just another case here, we weren't dealing with just one small group of people. We were dealing with another society, another world, and in this new world humans weren't at the top of the food chain- they were at the bottom. Sam and I weren't used to negotiating our way through this world, we were used to having people listen to us, sometimes even be afraid of us. In this world though, not one single being was afraid of us. Bella slid right into it, she could rule this world- a weak human being that entire covens and packs would die to protect. Compared to Isabella Swan, we were the weaklings in this world.

"Alright, why should their eye colour matter?" I began, starting with what appeared to be the smallest chunk of all the information she had just shoved down my throat in less than five seconds.

"Rule number one of hanging around vampires- know when they're thirsty. And the way to tell that is with their eyes. A vampire that drinks human blood will have bright red eyes that darken to black the thirstier they get. A vampire that hunts animals is exactly the same, but with gold eyes instead of red. You can always tell when a vampire is seriously pissed off at you because their eyes will turn dead black- all the colour will melt from them as their bodies absorb all the blood in order to prepare them to fight. A newborn vampire will have eyes such a bright red that they'll almost seem to glow because their own human blood still runs in their system."

"And you figured this out all on your own?" Sam asked, curious.

Bella Swan just blushed, "Yes. I've seen thirsty vampires, I've seen vampires of both types who just hunted, and I've seen newborns. Apparently I'm unnaturally observant when it comes to mythical creatures."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"You think Edward just walked up and told me all this? I figured it all out on my own before I had the confidence to approach him and confront him about it. I didn't want to risk doing anything until I knew as much I could. Then we fell in love, and things just fell into place." Why do I get the feeling that there are some major gaps in that story she just told me?

"Alright then," I said, wanting to test her story, "Why did Edward leave if things were going so well?"

Bella sighed and wrapped her arms around her stomach, like she was trying to hold herself together. "He wanted to protect me. This world I live in is insanely dangerous for a human, I've been hunted, armies have been created to take me out, even spending time around the Cullens poses some risks- they have control, but if I start bleeding then it might slip. Edward left me in hopes that his world would stop following me. It was too late though, this is my world too, and once you're in you can't leave. Not with the V-" she cut herself off and started again, "We couldn't stand to be apart from each other either. The mate-to-mate bond is impossible to deny once it gets hooked in."

"Isabella Marie Swan- did I just hear you say someone created an army to take you out?" I hissed, wondering what Charlie would think.

Bella sighed, "Alright- if you insist I'll tell you all the gory, unimportant details. I guess I just didn't want to scare you."

"I don't scare easily." I bluffed, wondering if maybe Bella Swan scared less easily than I did these days.

"Okay," she began, obviously trying to put her train of thought together, "It all started when I went to school one day, I had already seen the Cullens and I knew something was up with them. I felt strangely, unexplainably attracted to Edward, but I smelled good enough to eat, so he avoided me. I was standing by my truck when Tyler Crowley came screeching around the corner with his van. Heading straight for me. Then Edward ran across the parking lot and stopped the van from crushing me. At the time neither of us had any idea why he did that, especially since he was avoiding me like the plague. His annoyingly superior attitude drove me to figure out what he was, so I went down to the Quileute reservation to hear some of their legends. That's how I figured out that they were vampires, I did some research to double check."

"How'd that research go?" Nicolas asked with a smirk, he knew that if you typed 'vampires' into a search engine then you were going to get a lot of crap.

"For the most part it sucked, but I did manage to find a myth about Carlisle though." I giggled at the memory, "He was shocked about that, when I asked him he just shook his head and said that one of his old friends had a twisted sense of humour."

"What was the myth?"

"_Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and the mortal enemy of all bad vampires."_

"Why's that funny?"

"Mostly because Carlisle isn't the mortal enemy of all bad vampires, and the fact that humans think he is originates from a mock fight he and his friend staged in an alley to develop the myth. That's not something Carlisle would ever do in real life. The Cullen's choice of lifestyle is painful, animal blood never fully stops the burning thirst. Carlisle would never, ever, force that choice on someone else, so he doesn't go around killing people who don't listen to him."

They both stared at me with open eyes, "You mean he's friends with vampires that are... _murderers." _ He choked out the last word and I realized what Edward had meant when he said that my reactions were bizarre. After all, when Edward had told me that _he _had hunted humans for about ten years, I had just shrugged and said that that actually sounded fairly reasonable. And it did sound reasonable- to me anyways.

I doubted that it would sound as reasonable to the nice agents.

I shrugged, "It's not really as bad as it seems, it's not as if he hunts with them, they just spend a few hours talking about things. There are only..." I did the math in my head, counting up the Denali Coven and the Cullens combined, "... twelve vampires on this entire planet that hunt animals. It's a rather small group, so of course he talks to other vampires." Actually, I had no idea what the Cullens did when they were spending time with human-eating vampires. Peter and Charlotte had come to visit once, but Edward practically locked me in my room to make sure I was safe.

Overprotective fool.

Sam seemed intrigued by it all; it seemed to appeal to his logical way of looking at things, he was about to ask me something, but before he had the chance Nicolas shook his head, shutting Sam up. "So what happened next?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

"Well, I became Edward's... girlfriend doesn't quite fit, the bond is too deep for that... I became Edward's- for lack of a better word- mate. I started hanging out with the Cullens. One night we were playing baseball- well, they were playing, I was watching- when a couple of nomads decided to pay us a visit. We had known they were in the area, but they hadn't noticed the Cullens were in the area. They heard the game and decided to come see who was playing. These nomads definitely weren't Carlisle's friends." I said, remembering all the snarling and overprotective growling that had been going on.

"There were three of them; James, his mate Victoria and Laurent. James was a tracker, a vampire that lived for the hunt. And there I was, a tasty smelling human protected by the second-largest Coven on the planet. The perfect hunt. The Cullens killed James in the end and saved me, but they didn't notice he had a mate. Laurent had seen that James was bound to lose and left his coven, he had been planning to go see another coven, but before he had a chance he ran afoul with the Quileutes- he tried to hunt on their territory."

I decided that it would be a good idea to omit the fact that he had been trying to hunt _me._

"It was around then that Edward left me to protect me. Both of us collapsed, and in the end Alice just dragged the two of us back together. We realized what a dumb mistake we had made and got back together."

That's pretty much what happened, minus the werewolves, Victoria, the Volturi, Laurent... I just don't think the agents need to know all that. Plus Alice had said to never, under any conditions, mention the Volturi more than necessary.

I chuckled slightly, "Alice is like that." It wasn't a complete lie, Alice _was _like that, and it's not important that she just wasn't like that at the exact moment.

"Anyways, we were getting settled back in when Victoria decided to come back to town and try to kill us all- with the exception of Edward- so that Edward could feel exactly like she did now that James was dead. She created an army of newborn vampires and came to Forks. The Quileutes formed an alliance with the Cullens, and they took out the newborn army together. Then Edward asked me to marry him and I said yes, we were heading home to tell Charlie when- of course- a newborn vampire serial killer decided to come and crash he wedding."

Agent Nicolas rolled his eyes, "You've left out all mention of the Volturi Bella, and I know that you've met them before."

Damn. I was hoping they wouldn't notice.

I sighed, "They came to deal with the newborns in Seattle, but we had already dealt with them, so the trail led them straight to us instead. They knew it wasn't us that had caused the trouble in Seattle, and we're all really grateful about _that. _The Volturi exist as the leaders of the vampire world because they have one purpose- keep the secret. They don't give second chances; they've given us one only because Carlisle and Aro are friends. When they came and found us they knew immediately that the Cullens had broken the rules, they left on the guarantee that I would be turned into a vampire. If they came back, and I was still human they'd kill us all. Add to that if they came back and I was still human, and _two_ FBI agents knew the secret too... we'd be so, _so _screwed. That's why I freaked out so much when you said you already knew. I was afraid we were just being so obvious."

I shook my head, "No worries, you're not." There was way too much information for me to digest in this conversation. There was too much information for me to digest in this one conversation alone. I wondered if Bella was telling the truth, and if she wasn't then maybe a change of scenery would make her slip. "This is going to take a while, why don't we go for a walk to let things digest a little."

Bella looked slightly alarmed, "I don't think that that's really such a good idea-"

I cut her off, hoping I had her off balance, "Come on Bella. This is all too much for me to take in. I bet you went for a walk when you figured this out."

Bella obviously had, because she stood up and followed me out the door. Her face was lined with slight worry, like she was doing something she knew was against the rules and she was afraid of getting caught. Was she worried some of the Cullens would be in the woods?

All three of us headed down the small path outside Bella's house.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: And now we reach the fun part of the story (what can I say, I like writing violent fight scenes). Read and review!**

**Chapter Eleven- Blood and Venom**

**Bella POV**

How stupid can I be? Alice had told me to stay _inside _my house, and here I was walking into the woods even though I knew that the Cullens would be flushing an angry, desperate newborn in the general direction of me and two helpless FBI agents. Really, Edward is right; I have absolutely no survival instincts. And because of my bad luck, we all know how likely it is that the newborn will come _straight _towards me.

Stupid, stupid, stupid...

I hadn't been able to do otherwise though, if I had told the Agents the truth (that Alice had said no and we all listen to Alice because she can see the future) then I would have been revealing to the distrustful Agents that we knew they knew the secret, which would have showed them that this entire conversation was set up. And if that happened, we would be so screwed. If I just told them that I wasn't allowed in the woods, then they would probably try to go down the main road where lots of people could overhear our conversation.

Agent Nicolas and Agent Samuel were both watching me very closely, trying to decipher exactly what I was thinking. I tried to keep how nervous I was out of my system, not let it show on my face, but I could tell that I was failing miserably.

The lessons Edward gave me on lying so that I'd still be able to talk to Charlie when I was a newborn only go so far, and right now I think I've exceeded the limit by about fifty pounds of nerves. And since the Agents probably think I'm in league with a family of serial killing vampires, I really don't want to give them any reason to think I'm lying.

I wish that I could just shove all of my memories inside their heads so that they would _know _exactly what was going on, and then I wouldn't have to be an idiot and go for a walk in the woods where an insane vampire was running around. A vampire that was probably going to try and kill me right now.

Also, if I could show them my memories then I would be able to show them why secrecy was so important. I wondered what would happen to the Agents after this, they may be annoying, but they are kind. They didn't deserve any of the fates that this world offers to humans who know the secret. I was suited for the life of a vampire, it drew me in like a fly to honey, but those Agents aren't suited for it. For them to join my world would be yet another unhappy ending to add to the many others this world has collected.

I honestly debated trying to lead the Agents down the road into town, but that was too public of a place for the kind of conversations they would want to have with me. Even though I was afraid of the serial killer, I was much more afraid of what the already annoyed Volturi would do to me if I let the secret slip.

I suppose that's why they make such powerful (albeit hypocritical) leaders for the vampire world- if it weren't for their habit of torturing and killing people who slip then the secret would have been let out many times now.

That being said, I'd like everyone to notice how I said they were _powerful _leaders, not _good_ leaders.

Agent Nicolas, Agent Samuel and I walked in silence for a few minutes in the woods. I didn't bother trying to walk quietly, my heartbeat was pounding so loudly I'd bet that any mythical creature within a ten-mile radius could hear it. Instead I tried to concentrate on the woods around me for a sound. I knew that if I heard the sound- that if a hunting vampire was that close to a tasty morsel like me in the middle of the woods- then it would probably already be too late for me to run, but I couldn't stop myself from listening anyways.

In the end though, it never really helped. Every time one of the Agents stepped on a twig or a dry leaf I jumped a foot in the air, and by the end of the trail I was so twitchy that I was pretty sure that the Agents thought I was high. Agent Nicolas pulled off his coat and sat on it, gesturing for me and Sam to do the same. I thought about telling him no and heading back to the house, but then I chickened out and sat down beside them.

"So what exactly-" Agent Samuel started to ask something but a large cracking noise came from the woods behind us. I flinched, hoping that it was just a Cullen or a pack member in the woods showing their disapproval of me being in the woods alone by playing a prank. "Did you hear that?" he asked quietly. Both of them turned to look at me as I slowly got to my feet, they both looked at me and followed suite, getting up and pulling out their guns. I refrained from rolling my eyes. Don't guns work _great _against vampires? I mean they'll do everything, they'll even make newborn serial killing vampires feel threatened enough to attack you.

"Put those away, please." I asked them, trying to keep my voice calm and controlled. I was starting to realise that the nothing I had said to the Agents was clicking in their heads. They hadn't grasped even the most basic part of that conversation, which was 'vampires are indestructible'.

They both shot me incredulous looks and this time I did roll my eyes. Turning so that I was looking towards the place where I had heard the snapping noise- even though I doubted the newborn was still there- and said to the killer, "Those wouldn't have any effect on you, would they?"

There were a few moments of silence and I was starting to feel like a bit of an idiot- only I could manage to make two federal Agents that there's a crazy vampire running around, and then prove myself insane by talking to trees- when I heard a voice respond.

"True. Very true." His voice held the same kind of apathy that Jane's did, the kind of tone that someone's voice would get after they stopped caring about other people, after they started seeing people like bugs that were to be squashed. The Agents spun around and pointed their guns at the newborn. I turned more slowly, and took my time in studying him.

He was a fairly handsome man, but average at the same time. Girls might ogle him in a crowd, but he wouldn't get the reactions that someone like Rosalie or Edward would. The only thing that stood out were his eyes, they were a bright ruby red; it was such a brilliant colour that they almost seemed to glow from within. He dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a plaid button-up shirt. Apart from the eyes there was nothing about this man with his plain brown hair and demeanour of a regular person that would make him seem evil, or even slightly twisted. I would never have thought him a serial killer, and part of me wondered if he weren't a regular nomad who had wandered onto the Cullens territory.

I stood there for a few moments, wondering what he would do next. My whole goal in acting calm and collected was pretty simple- make myself seem interesting enough that he would spend more time studying me, and if he did that then the Cullens would hopefully come trekking past us and save my ass. I had no idea where they were hunting though, I wasn't that skilled with maps, and for all I knew they could be hours away from here. Either way though, I had to try and stall a little bit.

It was pretty much the only chance we had.

The Agents were not making my job any easier. This vampire was not only a newborn, but hunting as well. We all know how easy it is to trigger a vampire's defensive instincts, and if the Agents got anymore threatening the newborn would kill us all. I clenched and unclenched my teeth a few times and got myself under control. I figured the newborn would ask me a question soon, and if that question was 'how do you know that' I'd be in a lot of trouble. I didn't know why this vampire was killing humans, and I didn't want to risk triggering something that would provoke him.

Ugh, this entire thing makes me feel like I'm treading on eggshells. Really, _really _fragile eggshells with landmines underneath them.

"How did you manage to stop hunting." I asked curiously. In a way I actually was curious, the Cullens had told me how impossible it was for a century-old vampire to stop hunting, let alone one that must only be months old. I remembered the newborn Bree, she had been unable to sit in a clearing with me, let alone talk casually with me like this newborn was.

"Pardon?" he said, you could tell he was baiting me, trying to figure out what I knew. I was just happy he was willing to drag things out, obviously I had done something right, and all I had to do now was keep up the good work and drag the conversation out longer.

I raised an eyebrow and tried to imitate one of Edward's infuriatingly cryptic moments, "You know exactly what I mean, unless you're not thirsty. But I highly doubt that, I know for a fact that I smell tasty, and most newborns can only concentrate on that burn in the back of their throat when I'm around them. Your control is quite spectacular." There are at least three things there that he can ask about, I pray he takes the bait and starts babbling out the questions.

"Hmmm..." he smirked, "Now I wonder how you could know that..." he trailed off, inviting me to answer his question, and when I didn't say anything he continued, "Have you spent much time around my kind? That would appear to be a rather risky thing for you to do, especially considering the behaviour of our illustrious leaders."

I shrugged, "Maybe the Volturi don't care about me. I'm simply a weak little human after all." I debated threatening him with how Aro wanted me changed, but then I realised a newborn that took so little caution with how he hunted wouldn't care what the Volturi wanted.

"I believe that," he drawled in such a way that showed he very clearly didn't believe that, "After all, Isabella- you're the kind of girl who can attract vampires from miles around. You can even make a vampire fall in love with you. You'd be right, that alone might not attract the Volturi's attention. The fact that you challenged them on their own turf and walked away alive though, that indicates a very different story. Obviously something about you intrigues them."

"You've done you research." I said, unable to hide the slightly breathless tone in my voice. This guy was really creeping me out. I had all but forgotten the presence of Sam and Nick, I was so concentrated on the newborn.

He shrugged nonchalantly, "It wasn't really that hard. Vampires all over the world are talking about you, the miraculous human girl that fell in love with a vampire. The fact that you're actually marrying him has raised quite a few eyebrows."

"They're not talking about me," I said firmly, "I haven't even told my Dad that fact yet, so there's no way it could be circling the vampire world. As for the rest of it, that might be true, but I doubt it- the Volturi see me as a liability and embarrassment. Trust me when I say they're not letting people spread rumours about how amazing I am. So I suppose the real question is why have you been following me, and how long have you been doing so?" I prayed that I was right and he really was following me, or else that would make me look like a total idiot. And that would seriously ruin my mystique.

He smirked, "A while- or at least, until your little seer started looking for me. Then I decided to go with my instincts and stay away for a while. After all, if I make no decisions she can't see me at all- can she?"he continued speaking, so I assumed that his question must have been rhetorical. "As for why... well that would take quite a long time to explain."

"I'm curious, I can wait." I said loosely, still trying to be laid back and calm.

"You most certainly can. I don't intend to let any of you leave alive, so you can wait as long as I want you too."

I winced, I had known that was coming, but I still winced anyways. I remembered how James had tortured me in the ballet studio, the feel of the venom scorching through my blood. My only hope was that (assuming the Cullens didn't get here in time) he wouldn't have the control necessary to torture me for very long like James had.

"But back to your question. My reasons were quite simple actually. The Cullens intend to turn you into a vampire, and I simply cannot allow that to happen. You have far too much potential to turn into _her_."

He spoke of her with such hatred that the very air around him seemed to crackle with it. He seemed to lose patience with my games and took a few steps towards me. Desperate to distract him I started babbling, "And who exactly is 'her'? She's your creator isn't she, the one who brought you into this life?"

"You're just like all of them!" he snarled, "you say the word '_creator' _like the person who turned you is some sort of god. They're not, we're not. We're monsters, abominations. It's why I've been targeting you in particular- you're guaranteed to become an abomination just like the rest of us. I should just kill off every single human on the planet to stop anymore of us from being created, but since I know that's not possible, I concentrate on people like you who already freaks even though you're still human, people that have the most potential to turn into my murderer!"

Shit. He was getting angrier by the second. I didn't even notice when Nicolas clicked the safety off on his gun, aiming straight for the area between the newborns eyes. And, even more miraculously, the newborn didn't notice either. He was too focused on me. The newborn took another step and Nick reacted.

_CRACK!_

The sound of the round being fired made me jump into the air. The killer reacted so fast that I could've missed it by blinking. He slid out of the way of the bullet and lunged for Nick at top speed, slamming into him while his teeth connected to Nick's throat. Nick let out a scream of pain and I took the opportunity to grab the still stunned Sam's hand and run out of the clearing. I had only made it a few steps before the killer looked up. Nick was still alive and screaming, the venom searing through his veins. I wondered faintly why the killer had stopped drinking, but the main part of my mind was concentrating on dragging a man twice my size out of the clearing.

The reason became apparent when the newborn lunged in front of me. His lips were coated in a thin layer of blood, and his face was contorted into a hideous snarl. He licked the blood off of his lips and spat out the words, "You're not going anywhere, bitch. You're going to die and these two FBI Agents will not get in my way. I'll deal with you first, and then I'll deal with them." He lunged towards me and rubbed a hand down my face. I shuddered away from him- his hands were covered in blood. "Any last words?"

I got down to doing the thing I should have ages ago. I opened my mouth as loud as I could and let out an ear-splitting scream. "EDWARD! HELP ME! JAKE, EMMETT, ALICE-" I was forced to stop when his hand rammed into my chest, forcing the air out of my lungs. I heard several of my ribs snap and dropped like a sack of stones, more surprised than anything. The rush of adrenaline was blocking out the pain for now.

He pressed my collar bone down and pulled out a knife. Smirking he said, "I shouldn't let my style go just because you're an annoying, conniving bitch, now should I?"

I was too far gone into shock to comprehend what he was saying, let alone answer my question. He began to bring the knife down slowly, so slowly that I knew he was playing in me. I opened my mouth to scream again, but there were more banging noises, this time they seemed dimmer- I couldn't seem to hear anything except the strange rushing noises filling my ear.

The monster spun around and I realised dimly that Sam had shot him, distracting him again and triggering his defensive instincts. That must have been how he was able to stop hunting so much, he didn't have good control, but vampire instincts allow them to stop drinking to defend their prey from others of his kind. The newborn was so young still that he hadn't realised that humans were anything ne needed to protect his food from.

He lunged for the last human standing and sank his teeth into his neck, immobilizing him with venom too. The killer turned to me again as I clumsily pulled myself to my feet, trying to get to the other side of the clearing. He walked slowly and menacingly, aiming more to scare me than to be efficient. "Edward!" I tried again, but this time it was more of a hoarse whisper. I couldn't seem to breathe around the pain in my chest.

The monster came over and embraced me in what would seem to be a hug and I writhed desperately, trying to get out of his grip. His teeth were so close to my neck I could feel him breathing on me, I let out a chocked sob and squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the worst.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: This Chapter jumps from POV to POV a lot, and I apologize if that seems confusing, but all the main characters are either unconscious or writhing in pain for most of it, so I didn't exactly have a lot of different viewpoints to work with. I hope that, despite that, you'll enjoy it anyways (and leave a review too!)**

**Chapter Twelve- Crash and Burn**

**Bella POV**

The newborn's teeth were inches away from my skin, ready to suck me dry when a hard forced rammed into us, sending both of us flying in different directions. I slammed into a tree, my left arm getting caught in a branch while the rest of my body was carried forwards by the momentum of the throw. Something in my arm gave way and my shoulder was ripped from its socket. I let out a scream of anguish and finally flew into a patch of brambles, the thorns ripping at my skin. I managed to drag myself out of it, going only a few inched before I had to stop. I watched what was happening through what seemed to be a thin veil.

I could see what was happening, but I couldn't comprehend it. I could see a wolf lunge for the newborn and distract him, then Edward charged into the clearing and lunging for the monster easily ripping first his right arm off, then his left and finally his head. He finished dismembering the rest of the murderer's corpse and didn't even bother to drop the match on the twitching pile before rushing over to me and babbling at me- or at least it seemed like babbling. He was actually talking in a calm slow voice, but to me it sounded rushed and blurred. "Bella? Bella, can you hear me?"

I tried to say that yes, of course I can hear him. I would always be able to hear him, but my lips couldn't seem to break from their peculiar numbness and form the words.

Edward snarled softly, "Carlisle!" he hollered. I realised that while I had been concentrating on Edward the rest of the Cullens and wolves had ran into the clearing to start cleaning up the mess. Carlisle had been focused on the two changing FBI Agents, but at the sound of Edward's voice he rushed over to me. Flames licked at the sky and inky black smoke filled the air in the clearing.

Carlisle muttered something under his breath, if it had been anyone else then I would've thought he was swearing. _But Carlisle would never swear around a patient, _I giggled mentally, seeming to find that thought really funny for some unknown reason.

"Bella? Can you tell me what happened?" I tried to answer, but again I couldn't seem to find the right words. He frowned and I assumed my lack of answer meant something to him. "Alright, I want you just to keep your eyes open for me. Breath Bella. Edward, talk to her." Carlisle started methodically trying to check me over for injuries. I flinched when he touched my shoulder and he ripped strips of fabric off his shirt to immobilize it, he was about to tie them on when both he and Edward turned and looked in the same direction. I saw everyone else look in that direction as well.

Someone must be coming.

"Edward, we need to leave now. Charlie will take care of her, you know he will. We'd just do more harm than good. We need to get Agents Samuel and Nicolas out of here _now. _Unless you want to tell Charlie what happened, but I highly doubt that that would gain us anymore leniency in the Volturi's eyes, where we already happen to be on quite thin ice, in case you've forgotten._" _

Edward shot a look at his father figure, and then at me. "I'll get out of sight Carlisle, but I'm staying here. I refuse to leave her like this- and the consequences can go to hell. You get the Agents and the wolves out of here before the cops get here." Carlisle nodded and stood up, issuing orders.

Soon me, Edward and the smouldering corpse of the once-murdering newborn were the only ones left in the clearing.

I finally heard footsteps approaching, and the sounds of yelling voices. Edward faded slowly and carefully into the forest. About five people came into the clearing- Charlie, Fred- one of Charlie's co-workers- and three people who I assumed must have been volunteers. Charlie glanced over at me, "Bella? Bella!" he yelled, recognising me and running over to me, "Bella sweetie, can you hear me?" I wondered what it was with everyone asking me whether or not I could hear them. I mean really, just because I got thrown around a little doesn't mean I'm deaf. I tried to tell Charlie that, but just as before I couldn't seem to form the words. This time it was worse though, and I could feel a faint throbbing in the back of my head.

I closed my eyes, willing the headache to go away...

**Agent Nicolas POV**

The burning was unbelievable, it was so great that I knew it was happening, but it was also so immense that I couldn't comprehend it.

"Make it stop."

It felt like I was being burned from the inside out, all I could seem to do was beg for someone to stop it, to kill me if necessary. I didn't care about the rest of the world right now, about Sam or about the Cullens, I just wanted to burning to stop and if I had to pass on and leave them all behind to make it stop then I would. A faint part of my conscience stirred, telling me there was something wrong with that, but the burning overwhelmed that thought and seared it from my mind.

"Make it stop!"

It felt like I was inhaling pure fire and that once that fire was inside my body it was trapped there, every breath I took made it worse and worse and the pain became greater and greater.

"Someone make it stop! Please, just kill me, Damnit!"

**Charlie POV**

I watched as the paramedics loaded Bella into the ambulance, getting her out of the middle of the woods had been a chore and a half, but we had done it, and the paramedics had stabilized her on the way there. They said she was all cut up from the bramble patch she had been thrown into, and that she had a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder and some broken ribs. None of her ribs had punctured a lung though, so that was lucky.

Hah, lucky. I can't believe Bella was stupid enough to go walking in the woods alone. What the hell was she thinking? First the motorcycles, then this? She and I were going to have a very, very long heart to heart chat.

I hurriedly thanked all the volunteers for coming out, and asked them to go back to the station with Fred and thanked them for all their work. Turning to Fred I said, "I'm going to need to take the afternoon off."

Fred shot me a look and said, "No shit. Go take care of your daughter Charlie." I climbed into the squad car and took off down the road, sirens blaring.

**Bella POV**

When I opened my eyes again I was lying in the hospital. It was one of the small cubicles in the Forks hospital. Charlie was sitting by the side of my bed, looking worried. When he saw my eyes were open a look of relief washed over his face. "Hey dad," I said weakly.

"Hey Bells," his voice was soft, almost a whisper, "How are you feeling?"

I decided to answer truthfully instead of trying to downplay the injuries. There were probably several doctors in this hospital who could tell Charlie exactly how I was feeling, "Like I've been run over a few times and thrown off a cliff. What injuries do I have exactly?"

"Some broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, various cuts from getting thrown into a thorn bush and a broken wrist." He answered readily. I nodded, that made sense. He looked at his hands for a few seconds and I caught him trying to put a calm mask over his face.

I almost rolled my eyes at his worrying, "I'm fine, dad. Really." I tried to sit up to prove my point, but Charlie pushed me back onto the hospital bed.

He smiled slightly, "You're not that fine, Bells."

I heard a knock on the door and saw Edward look in, "Mind if I come in?" he asked.

Charlie frowned, "Can I have a few seconds?"

Edward nodded, "Of course."

Charlie smirked and bent down to whisper in my ear, "I know you're not going to like this, but I find blocking your boyfriend from seeing you an amusing way to pass the time in the hospital. He never leaves, does he?"

"Dad!" I groaned. "And no, he doesn't, because I ask him not to."

Charlie snorted, "Well I'm just happy he lives so far out of town that I don't have to worry about him climbing through your window at night."

"Yeah..." I said awkwardly, "Great..."

He frowned again at the tone of my voice and changed the topic, "But anyways, I know this'll be hard Bells, but I need you to tell me what you remember about what happened."

Oh shit. Think fast, Bella. How do explain how you and two very in shape, big men with guns managed to get your asses kicked by one very human serial killer?

"Agent Nicolas and Agent Samuel wanted to talk to me, so we went into the woods for a walk. They thought that they heard a noise in the bushes, I told them it was an animal, but they went to check it out anyways. That was when the serial killer jumped out and hit them both in the head with a bat so they collapsed. He hit me in the chest with it, I think that's how my ribs got broken, and started dragging me deeper into the forest. My arm got caught in between two trees and he ripped me out of the trees. My shoulder hurt so much after that that I think I passed out for a little bit. When I woke up I saw all of you coming into the clearing and tried to drag myself out of the bushes. That's how you found me."

Charlie nodded, jotting some things down on a notepad. "Do you remember what he looked like, Bella?"

"He was average, perfectly average; I could've walked past him a thousand times on the street and not noticed him. He had brown hair and brown eyes, and a face shaped face."

"How tall was he?"

"I don't know... taller than me, definitely."

He nodded, "Thanks Bells. I'm going to stop blocking your boyfriend now and head into the station. Call me if he tries anything."

"Dad!" I objected again and he walked out chuckling to himself.

Soon after he left, Edward walked in and sat down in the chair Charlie had just been sitting in. I smiled at him and for a few seconds all we did just stare at each other. Eventually I got curious enough to ask, "How long was I out for?"

Edward shrugged, "Three days. It would've been shorter but you had an allergic reaction to one of the pain meds they gave you."

Three days. "And what happens to the case now that the killer is dead?"

"It will go cold, and eventually the humans will forget that it ever happened in the first place." He said, "There may be some T.V. program done on it in a few years, but since the killer was dealt with and there was never any speculation about vampires the Volturi no longer have any reason to come poking around Forks. Well, minus you of course, but Carlisle managed to talk to Aro on the phone and tell him our wedding plans, so this means that Aro has given Carlisle a solid date when he will send the guard to check, and you'll have been changed long before then."

"Carlisle _called _Aro!" I squeaked, that _so _didn't sound like a good idea.

"You keep forgetting they were friends once, Bella." chuckled Edward, "Aro- despicable bastard that he is- still considers Carlisle one of his few friends, as long as we stick to the date we gave him nothing bad will happen."

"But when the newborn was here, then the guard will have massacred us."

"Yes, but the newborn isn't here anymore, and Aro doesn't feel like wasting his time and resources to change you when he knows that will kill any slight chance that there ever was that I would join him peacefully. As long as we deal with any problems that happen around here he'll turn a blind eye, Bella."

"And if we don't?"

"I think you know the answer to that." Edward said softly, "If we can't be ignored then he would have to deal with us."

"You honestly think that will be the end of it? He still wants you and Alice... and... and me." I managed to choke out.

"No, I don't. But Aro has nothing but time and patience, and he'll want to try and see if he can get us to come peacefully to his side. That saves him lots of trouble, so he's willing to wait a few centuries. After that all the bets are off, but we'll handle it somehow."

Yeah, _somehow. _As if we could defeat the Volturi.

I nodded, "And the Agents?" they had been changing when I left the clearing. I felt a twinge of guilt. If I had just been a big girl and told them why we couldn't go out alone then this all would've never happened.

"Are perfectly fine. They're headed up to Denali to spend some time with Tanya's family. Don't ever tell them this, but let's just say that Alice sees some interesting things going on between Nicolas and Tanya, and Irena and Samuel once they get there." I wondered idly how Irena was going to get over Laurent, but then I realized that the bond must not have been as strong as we thought. After all, her reactions were the same compared to what most people's would've been if their boyfriend died.

"So they changed?"

Edward nodded, "They felt really bad for bullying you out into the woods."

"It's my fault. I should've just said no and stayed inside."

Edward shook his head, "Alice saw the newborn going for you there anyways. She said that he knew we were hunting him and he saw you as the biggest threat to his grand scheme. He knew he was about to die and he wanted to take you with him."

"That's... morbid."

"You have no idea what his thought were like." Edward chuckled darkly.

"Are you sure the Agents are going to be okay?" I asked, still worried about them.

"I'm positive, neither of them really had life outside of work and each other. Alice says that she sees them falling in love and being happy for eternity, trust me when I say that they got their happy ending, Bella." He chuckled again, but this time there was nothing dark about it, "Although I am curious to find out why the two of them seem to think you're a masterful vampire manipulator."

I flushed a deep scarlet, "I've no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, I think you do. Even Jane said it once, 'this human brings out the strangest reactions among our kind'."

"And her opinion is very trustworthy, I'm sure." I said sarcastically.

Edward shrugged, "You never do see yourself clearly, Bella. Trust me, I would know."

"And how exactly would you know?" I scoffed.

Edward smirked, "Well here I am, a bloodsucking monster, head over heels for you and about to marry you. You tell me if that sounds normal?"

I stayed silent for a few seconds, and then I remembered something.

"Oh God, we forgot to tell Charlie."


End file.
